Sentencing

Once the legislature has defined the acts it will punish as criminal, it must then establish a sentencing system. There are two principal features of a sentencing system: it grades crimes according to seriousness, and it apportions sentencing discretion among the legislature, the courts, and administrative agencies. The device for apportionment between the legislature and the courts is the mandatory sentence, by which the legislature may fix a period of imprisonment for a crime and forbid judges to grant probation. Apportionment of sentencing discretion between the courts and administrative agencies, on the other hand, is governed by the choice between definite and indeterminate sentences. In a definite sentence, the trial judge fixes the period of imprisonment; an indeterminate sentence leaves the length of imprisonment open to continual reevaluation by an administrative agency. Thus, a legislature must decide how much criminal punishment to authorize, which crimes to subject to mandatory sentences, and whether to authorize definite or indeterminate sentences (or both). The Maine Legislature has made these critical choices in Part 3 of the Criminal Code.