Sentencing Commission votes to audit missing guideline worksheets statewide, will notify judges, clerks and commonwealth's attorneys

The Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission voted 9–4 on March 25 to perform a statewide audit of sentencing-guideline worksheets and to distribute jurisdiction-level lists to circuit judges, circuit court clerks and commonwealth's attorneys.

Commission staff presented a preliminary audit of two localities, Stafford and Newport News, that compared court management system (CMS) downloads to the Commission’s stored worksheets. Staff said the pilot indicates the state may be missing roughly 17% of worksheets for the 2022–2023 period and estimated several thousand cases could be unreported without further matching (staff briefing and pilot analysis). A staff member told the commission they had already found between 2,000 and 3,000 additional cases still being processed for matching.

Commissioner [name omitted in transcript] moved that staff perform a statewide audit, break the results down by FIPS/jurisdiction and distribute the lists; the motion was amended to include commonwealth's attorneys and passed by voice vote, 9–4. Chair announced the motion carried after a roll-call-style hand count recorded nine in favor and four opposed.

Why it matters: sentencing-guideline worksheets are the Commission’s primary source for scoring sentences and producing fiscal-impact estimates. Missing worksheets limit the Commission’s ability to validate guideline use, compute departures, and produce reliable trend and workload measures that feed the General Assembly and resource-allocation calculations.

What staff will do: staff said they will run statewide downloads, apply their matching syntax used in the pilot, produce per-jurisdiction lists by FIPS, and send those lists to judges, clerks and commonwealth's attorneys so local officials can identify submission gaps. Staff also said they will update the Commission on progress in November and asked jurisdictions to treat the lists as a training and quality-control tool rather than a sanctioning report.

Practical issues and reactions: commissioners and staff discussed several operational causes for missing worksheets, including clerk-office turnover, a required ‘submit’ step in SWIFT that is not always performed, and different local practices for who prepares or uploads worksheets (judge’s chambers, probation, or the commonwealth’s office). A judge on the commission urged distributing the report to judges to create peer pressure to correct systemic problems, while others favored including clerks and commonwealth's attorneys so the entire local process is visible and accountable.

Next steps: staff will proceed with a statewide run, refine matching logic where local VCC or name mismatches occur, and report back to the commission on findings and recommended remedial actions. The Commission recorded the motion and vote in the meeting minutes.

Ending: the audit motion was the meeting’s principal formal action; commissioners directed staff to proceed and to return with updates and recommendations.