AMENDMENT 81

Amendment: Section 1B1.9 is amended in the title by deleting "Petty Offenses" and inserting in lieu thereof "Class B or C Misdemeanors and Infractions".

Section 1B1.9 is amended by deleting "(petty offense)" immediately following "infraction".

The Commentary to §1B1.9 captioned "Application Notes is amended in the first sentence of Note 1 by deleting "petty offense" and inserting in lieu thereof "Class B or C misdemeanor or an infraction", in the second sentence of Note 1 by deleting "A petty offense is any offense for which the maximum sentence that may be imposed does not exceed six months’ imprisonment." and inserting in lieu thereof "A Class B misdemeanor is any offense for which the maximum authorized term of imprisonment is more than thirty days but not more than six months; a Class C misdemeanor is any offense for which the maximum authorized term of imprisonment is more than five days but not more than thirty days; an infraction is any offense for which the maximum authorized term of imprisonment is not more than five days.", in the first sentence of Note 2 by deleting "petty offenses" and inserting in lieu thereof "Class B or C misdemeanors or infractions", in the second sentence of Note 2 by deleting "petty" and inserting in lieu thereof "such", in the third sentence of Note 2 by deleting "petty offense" and inserting in lieu thereof "Class B or C misdemeanor or infraction" and, in Note 3 by deleting:

"3. All other provisions of the guidelines should be disregarded to the extent that they purport to cover petty offenses.".

The Commentary to §1B1.9 captioned "Background" is amended by deleting:

"voted to adopt a temporary amendment to exempt all petty offenses from the coverage of the guidelines. Consequently, to the extent that some published guidelines may appear to cover petty offenses, they should be disregarded even if they appear in the Statutory Index",

and inserting in lieu thereof:

"exempted all Class B and C misdemeanors and infractions from the coverage of the guidelines".

Reason for Amendment: The purposes of this amendment are to conform the guideline to a revision in the statutory definition of a petty offense, and to convert the wording of the Commission’s emergency amendment at §1B1.9 (effective June 15, 1988) to that appropriate for a permanent amendment. Section 7089 of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 revises the definition of a petty offense so that it no longer exactly corresponds with a Class B or C misdemeanor or infraction. Under the revised definition, a Class B or C misdemeanor or infraction that has an authorized fine of more than $5,000 for an individual (or more than $10,000 for an organization) will not be a petty offense. This legislative revision does not affect the maximum terms of imprisonment authorized. The maximum authorized term of imprisonment remains controlled by the grade of the offense (i.e., the maximum term of imprisonment remains five days for an infraction, thirty days for a Class C misdemeanor, and six months for a Class B misdemeanor). Because the statutory grade of the offense (i.e., a Class B or C misdemeanor or an infraction) is the more relevant definition for guideline purposes, this amendment deletes the references in §1B1.9 to "petty offenses" and in lieu thereof inserts references to "Class B and C misdemeanors and infractions."

Effective Date: The effective date of this amendment is November 1, 1989.