Juvenile Transfer Status and Punishment Under the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines

• In Event: The Law in Action: Sentencing Policies and Guidelines on the Ground

Abstract

Prior research suggests juveniles who have been transferred to criminal court face more punitive sentencing outcomes than similarly situated adult defendants. However, the findings from this body of work have not been entirely consistent. Some studies find the “juvenile penalty” to emerge under certain conditions, while others observe a “youth discount.” Identifying when a juvenile defendant is likely to experience one in lieu of the other is thus of empirical importance to current juvenile transfer literature. To date, limited research has examined how cases involving transferred youth are disposed in correspondence with the presumptive recommendations specified under sentencing guidelines systems, as presumptive sentences can inform and restrict the exercise of judicial discretion in ways that affect sentencing disparities between juveniles and adults. The present study contributes to this work by using data from the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission on felony cases disposed over a 12-year period. Findings suggest that juvenile defendants receive robust penalties in the disposition decision, and that these patterns vary in noteworthy ways according to the presumptive recommendations under the Minnesota guidelines. The theoretical and policy implications of these results for understanding how judicial discretion may be liberated and/or constrained under structured guidelines systems are discussed.

Authors

• Jae Eun Lee, University of Maryland, College Park

• Peter S. Lehmann, Sam Houston State University