
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, December 13, 1994                   TAG: 9412130081
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                 LENGTH: Medium

SENTENCING PANEL TAKES FIRST STEP

The panel that will develop the sentencing guidelines judges will use after parole is abolished approved new worksheets Monday for judges to use in calculating prison time for violent criminals.

The Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission approved the worksheets as their first step in the crackdown on serious crime under the ``truth-in-sentencing'' plan the General Assembly passed in September.

Under the guidelines, repeat offenders convicted of any one of several violent offenses would serve anywhere from 100 percent to 500 percent longer terms than they could expect to serve under the old system.

``These guidelines will emphasize that criminals will be held accountable for their actions,'' Attorney General Jim Gilmore said.

The sentencing guidelines were drafted by the General Assembly when it voted to abolish parole. The voluntary guidelines, like parole abolition, will apply to crimes committed after Jan. 1.

The legislature also created the sentencing commission, which will examine the new guidelines and recommend changes by Dec. 1, 1995. Those changes would have to be approved by the General Assembly and would take effect July 1, 1996.

Criminals convicted of offenses committed before Jan. 1 will be sentenced under the old guidelines and will remain eligible for parole. So for at least the first few months of 1995, judges will be operating with two sets of sentencing guidelines.

The commission expects only about 100 defendants to be sentenced under the new guidelines by July 1.

Kern also said about 21 percent of criminals will serve more time in prison after the guidelines take effect. The rest are mostly nonviolent offenders whose sentences might appear lighter, but whose actual time served will remain about the same because of a requirement that each inmate serve at least 85 percent of his or her sentence.

The present system makes some inmates eligible for parole after serving as little as one-sixth of their sentence.

Richard Cullen, a commission member who co-chaired Gov. George Allen's commission on parole abolition, said judges will have to learn to think of sentences in a different way.

``We're going to have a real communications challenge to get a judge who is used to sentencing someone to four or five years to sentence that person to 11 months,'' Cullen said.

by CNB