DICKSON, J.
Appealing his convictions on two counts of Child Molesting, each as a class C felony, the defendant, J.S. [footnote omitted] has presented several claims, one of which is that the trial court failed to consider as a mitigating circumstance the defendant’s relatively low score on a Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) offender recidivism risk assessment instrument. We grant transfer to address this issue in conjunction with our decision today in Malenchik v. State, ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ind. 2010).
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We hold today in Malenchik, however, that the scores produced by the LSI-R and other similar offender recidivism risk assessment instruments do not function as aggravating or mitigating circumstances for the purpose of determining the length of sentence appropriate for each defendant. Id. at ___ [slip op. at 14]. In one sense, it would appear that such recidivism assessment coincides with at least two of the mitigating considerations designated by statute that focus upon an offender’s probable future conduct: Indiana Code § 35-38-1-7.1(b)(7) (“The person is likely to respond affirmatively to probation or short term imprisonment”), and Indiana Code § 35-38-1-7.1(b)(8) (“The character and attitudes of the person indicate that the person is unlikely to commit another crime”). And as to both aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the items enumerated by statute “do not limit the matters that the court may consider in determining the sentence.” Ind. Code § 35-38-1-7.1(c). On the other hand, the LSI-R is not “designed to assist in establishing the just penalty.” Malenchik, ___ N.E.2d at ___ [slip op. at 10] (quoting D.A. An-drews, Ph.D. & James L. Bonta, Ph.D, The Level of Service Inventory-Revised User’s Manual at 3 (2001)). Furthermore, the data selection and evaluations that comprise an assessment instrument are prepared not by the sentencing judge but by probation officers or other administrators, and their selection and evaluations may not precisely coincide with the trial judge’s findings from the evidence presented at sentencing. Id. at ___ [slip op. at 10–11]. For these reasons, the offender risk assessment scores do not in themselves constitute, and cannot serve as, an aggravating or mitigating circumstance. Id. Notwithstanding a possible slight divergence from the factual assessments of the sentencing judge, the LSI-R and similar instruments have proven to be statistically reliable indicators of recidivism risk probabilities and thus may be considered to “supplement and enhance a judge’s evaluation, weighing, and application of the other sentencing evidence in the formulation of an individualized sentencing program appropriate for each defendant.” Id. at ___ [slip op. at 11]. They “do not replace but may inform a trial court’s sentencing determinations.” Id. at ___ [slip op. at 2].3 [3Sentencing proceedings for determining whether to impose a sentence of death or life imprisonment without parole call for a departure from this rule. In cases involving whether to impose a sentence of death or life imprisonment without parole, a jury may determine the sentence and is entitled to consider any mitigating factor or circumstance. Ind. Code § 35-50-2-9(c)(8) (expressly authorizing consideration of “[a]ny other circumstances appropriate for consideration”); see also Abdul-Kabir v. Quarterman, 550 U.S. 233, 248, 127 S. Ct. 1654, 1665, 167 L. Ed. 2d 585, 598 (2007) (“[T]he sentencer in capital cases must be permitted to consider any relevant mitigating factor.” (quoting Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 112, 102 S. Ct. 869, 875, 71 L. Ed. 2d 1, 9 (1982))). In such cases, therefore, the results of an LSI-R or other similar evidence-based offender risk assessment instrument may be given consideration as an independent mitigating circumstance.]
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We understand from the record that the trial court here considered but elected to give no mitigating weight to the defendant’s LSI-R score. We do not review this weighing decision. To the extent that the trial judge instead may have refused to even consider the score as a possible mitigating circumstance, such decision would not be an abuse of discretion because the LSI-R score is not in the nature of, nor may it be considered as, an aggravating or mitigating circumstance. Rather, its function is to “supplement and enhance a judge’s evaluation, weighing, and application of the other sentencing evidence in the formulation of an individualized sentencing program appropriate for each defendant.” Malenchik, ___ N.E.2d at ___ [slip op. at 11]. We find no error in the trial court’s decision to disregard the defendant’s LSI-R score.
Shepard, C.J., and Sullivan, Boehm, and Rucker, JJ., concur.