Consecutive Sentencing
Guidelines Section 2.F
When the court orders sentences to be "consecutive," the court is ordering that multiple sentences be served one after the other in the manner described in 2.F. of the Guidelines. There are two types of consecutive sentences:
1. Presumptive Consecutive Sentencing
2. Permissive Consecutive Sentencing
More to Know
Section 2.G.13 of the Guidelines
The second or subsequent severe violent offense modifier cannot be applied to a consecutive sentence.
Section 3.C.2.c of the Guidelines
To avoid double credit when applying jail credit to consecutive sentences, the court must apply the jail credit to the first sentence only.
To avoid creating a concurrent sentence when a current offense is sentenced consecutively to a prior offense for which the offender is already serving time in a prison or jail, the court must not apply jail credit from the prior offense to the current offense.
Section 2.F. of the Guidelines
- Imposition of consecutive sentences in any situation not described in section 2.F. is a departure.
- When consecutive sentencing is presumptive, it is a departure to give concurrent sentences.
- When the court imposes consecutive sentences, the court must sentence the offenses in the order in which they occurred.
- If two or more sentences are consecutively executed at the same time and by the same court, the Commissioner of Corrections must aggregate the sentence durations into a single fixed sentence. The aggregate term of imprisonment must be served before the aggregate supervised release period.
- If a sentence is executed consecutively to an earlier executed sentence (executed at an earlier time or by a different court), and the offender has not yet been placed on supervised release for the earlier executed sentence, the Commissioner of Corrections must aggregate both terms of imprisonment into a single, fixed term of imprisonment. The offender will serve the longer of the two supervised release terms.
- If a sentence is executed consecutively to an earlier executed sentence after the supervised release date for the earlier sentence, any remaining supervised release term from the earlier executed sentence is tolled while the offender serves the consecutive term of imprisonment. The offender will serve what remains of the previously tolled supervised release term of the supervised release term for the consecutive sentence, whichever is longer.
Consecutive sentences are a more severe sanction because the intent is to confine the offender for a longer period than under concurrent sentences. If the severity of the sanction is to be proportional to the severity of the offense, consecutive sentences should be limited to more severe offenses. The Commission recommends that the court consider carefully whether the purposes of the Guidelines (in terms of punishment proportional to the severity of the offense and the offender’s criminal history) would be served best by concurrent rather than consecutive sentences.
