How the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Work

Important: Changes Are Coming August 1, 2026

The criminal history score is undergoing significant changes. The Sentencing Guidelines Commission adopted a major overhaul in December 2025 that — unless the Legislature provides otherwise — takes effect August 1, 2026. Because the version of the Guidelines that applies generally depends on your offense date, it's essential to confirm which set of rules governs your specific case. Don't assume; the difference can change the presumptive sentence. This page describes the framework and flags what's changing, but you should verify the current grid and criminal-history rules for your offense date before relying on any number.

What's changing in 2026: the adopted amendments reduce the felony "decay" period (the time after which old felonies stop counting) from fifteen years to ten, convert custody status from a score component into a durational modifier, eliminate juvenile points from the score, and simplify how prior DWIs and other gross misdemeanors are counted. These are meaningful changes to how exposure is calculated — another reason to confirm which rules apply to your case.

What Are the Sentencing Guidelines?

The Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines, administered by the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission, are a structured framework that applies to felony-level offenses. They were created to reduce sentencing disparity — so that two people with similar offenses and similar records receive similar sentences, regardless of which of Minnesota's 87 counties they're sentenced in. The Guidelines produce a presumptive sentence that carries legal weight: a judge can only deviate from it with written justification, which makes the Guidelines effectively binding in most felony cases.

Note: the Guidelines apply to felonies. Misdemeanor and gross-misdemeanor sentences are governed by statute, not the grid. DWI sentencing has its own framework, covered on our DWI pages.

Why Minnesota Uses Guidelines

The Guidelines were created to make felony sentencing more uniform and proportional — so that similar offenders who commit similar offenses receive similar sentences, regardless of which county or judge happens to handle the case. The Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission maintains the grids and commentary and updates them over time. Because those updates happen, the specific numbers in any given cell should always be checked against the current grid rather than assumed.

The Two Inputs: Severity Level and Criminal History

Every presumptive sentence comes from the intersection of two numbers on a grid:

• Severity level (vertical axis): Each felony offense is ranked by how serious the law considers it. Homicide offenses sit at the top; lower-level property and financial crimes sit near the bottom. The conviction offense determines the severity level.
• Criminal history score (horizontal axis): A number, generally running 0 through "6 or more," built from your prior record. Prior felonies generally count about 1 point each (some weighted more), prior gross misdemeanors about half a point, with additional points possible for things like being on probation or supervised release at the time of the offense ("custody status"). Note: several of these components change on August 1, 2026 — see above.

Find the offense's row, find your history-score column, and the cell where they meet is your presumptive sentence.

What a Grid Cell Tells You

Each cell does two things at once — it tells you the disposition (prison or probation) and the duration:

Minnesota uses three grids: see the Standard Grid, the Drug Offender Grid, and the Sex Offender Grid on their own pages.

Disposition: the line between prison and probation

The grid has a stair-step "dispositional line." Cells below and to the left of it are presumptive stayed sentences — meaning a prison term is pronounced but stayed, and you're placed on probation (often with up to a year of local jail as a condition). Cells above and to the right are presumptive commitment — meaning the presumed outcome is executed prison time.

Duration: the number and its range

Each prison cell contains a recommended duration in months (for example, 48 months). Around that fixed number is a range — roughly 15% above and 15% below — within which a judge can sentence without it counting as a departure. So the grid gives both a target and a small window of ordinary discretion.

Departures: When a Judge Can Go Off the Grid

The presumptive sentence is presumed correct. To impose something different, the court must find "substantial and compelling" reasons and state them in writing. There are two kinds of departure, and they can go up or down:

• Durational departure — a longer or shorter prison term than the grid range.
• Dispositional departure — changing prison to probation (downward) or probation to prison (upward).

Departures are driven by recognized factors:

• Aggravating factors (Guidelines 2.D.2) — such as particular cruelty, a victim's particular vulnerability, a major economic offense, the presence of a child during a violent crime, or an offense committed for the benefit of a gang. These can support an upward departure.
• Mitigating factors (Guidelines 2.D.3) — such as the offender playing a minor role, the victim's provocation, or age-related or cognitive limitations bearing on culpability. These can support a downward departure.

What this means for you: a downward dispositional departure — turning presumptive prison into probation — is often the single most valuable outcome a defense can achieve in a felony case, and it lives or dies on building a documented, factor-based record. (See sentencing departures in Minnesota.)

Mitigating Factors (Downward Departures)

Recognized grounds for a downward departure include the defendant playing a minor or passive role, the victim being an aggressor, the defendant's particular amenability to probation (often the basis for a dispositional departure), and similar circumstances that make the case atypical. A persuasive departure motion, supported by a strong record, is one of the most valuable tools at sentencing.

Aggravating Factors (Upward Departures)

The State can seek an upward departure for circumstances like particular cruelty, a particularly vulnerable victim, or an offense committed as part of a group. Importantly, under Blakely v. Washington, facts used to support an upward departure (other than a prior conviction) must be admitted by the defendant or found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt — they cannot simply be found by the judge. That constitutional rule is a significant check on aggravated sentencing.

What the Grid Doesn't Control

Two important limits. First, mandatory minimums set by the Legislature (for example, certain firearm offenses under Minn. Stat. § 609.11) can override the grid — the presumptive sentence is the longer of the grid duration or the mandatory minimum. Offenses subject to a mandatory life sentence — such as first-degree murder and certain serious sex offenses under Minn. Stat. § 609.3455 — are excluded from the Guidelines by law. Second, there are separate grids for sex offenses and drug offenses, which follow their own severity rankings and policy rules (for instance, the drug grid allows a treatment-based departure in some cases). The standard grid covers most other felonies.

Why This Matters for Your Defense

Because the score drives the outcome, getting the criminal history score right is itself a defense task. History is sometimes miscalculated — old offenses counted that shouldn't be, points assigned incorrectly, or the wrong version of the rules applied (a real risk around the August 1, 2026 transition). A careful review of how your score was built can change the presumptive sentence, and identifying grounds for a departure can change it further.

Sentencing Errors and Appeals

Because the Guidelines are rule-bound, sentencing produces appealable errors: a miscalculated criminal-history score, a misplaced severity level, an unsupported departure, or a departure imposed without the required findings. A felony sentence can be appealed in its own right. See our guide on criminal appeals in Minnesota.

Key Terms

• Presumptive sentence: The sentence the grid says applies — presumed correct unless the court departs.
• Severity level: The ranking of how serious the conviction offense is (the grid's vertical axis).
• Criminal history score: A point total from prior convictions and custody status (the grid's horizontal axis).
• Dispositional line: The stair-step boundary on the grid between presumptive probation and presumptive prison.
• Departure: A sentence different from the presumptive one, allowed only for substantial and compelling reasons stated in writing.