§2A2.1 Assault with Intent to Commit Murder: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2016
In fiscal year 2016, all 80 people sentenced in federal court under §2A2.1, "Assault with Intent to Commit Murder," received a prison term. The median prison term was 120.5 months (10 years), and a mandatory minimum applied to 36 of the 80 (45%).
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In brief: In fiscal year 2016, all 80 people sentenced in federal court under §2A2.1, "Assault with Intent to Commit Murder," received a prison term. The median prison term was 120.5 months (10 years), and a mandatory minimum applied to 36 of the 80 (45%).
This post uses the U.S. Sentencing Commission's records of 80 people sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2016. Acquittals and dismissals come from a second source, the Federal Judicial Center's records of 753,808 federal defendants whose cases ended in fiscal years 2016 to 2025. It is part of the Federal Prosecution Analysis series, which builds on Military Moves Toward Sentencing Guidelines to Mirror the Federal System. How the numbers were built: How the Federal Comparison Data Was Built.
Every Person Received Prison, and 36 Faced a Mandatory Minimum
The U.S. Sentencing Commission counted 80 people in fiscal year 2016 whose primary guideline was §2A2.1. 80 of 80 (100%) received a prison term, and 0 (0%) received probation only.
A mandatory minimum prison term applied to 36 of the 80 people (45%). A mandatory minimum is a floor set by statute, so it limits how low a sentence can go when it applies.
1 person received a life sentence.
How Long the Prison Terms Were
The median prison term was 120.5 months, which is 10 years. A quarter of the people received 216 months or more. A quarter received 96.8 months or less.
These are the terms imposed by the courts, not the time served. The one life sentence is reported as its own count.
Trials Produced Longer Terms Than Guilty Pleas
69 of 80 people (86%) pleaded guilty, and 11 were convicted after a trial. The median prison term after a guilty plea was 120 months. After a trial it was 360 months.
The trial group has 11 people, which is small, and the records do not show what differed between those cases and the pleas. Among the guilty pleas, 84% had a written plea agreement and 16% were straight pleas.
Relation to the Guideline Range
Range information was available for all 80 people. 44% (35) were sentenced within the range. 28% (22) were below it at the government's request, and 23% (18) were below it without a government request. 6% (5) were above it.
Among everyone sentenced in federal court in 2016 under every guideline, 49% were within the range.
Supervised Release, Restitution, and Criminal History
79 people (99%) were ordered to serve supervised release after prison, with a median term of 36 months. No fine was ordered for anyone (0%). Restitution was ordered for 11 people (14%).
20% were in criminal history category I, the lowest, and 11% were in category VI, the highest. Court-martial records have no criminal history field.
This Year in the Longer Record
Fiscal year 2016 ran from October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2016. The Commission placed all 80 cases in its Assault category. Only convicted and sentenced people are counted, and acquittals and dismissals are not in the data.
In fiscal year 2017 the count was 130 people, with a median of 120 months and 43% within the range. Over fiscal years 2016 to 2025, 1,534 people were sentenced under §2A2.1, the median was 120 months, 88% pleaded guilty, and 41% were within the range. The table lists each year.
For all guidelines in 2016, 67,742 people were sentenced, with a median prison term of 24 months.
| Fiscal year | People sentenced | Median prison | Pleaded guilty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 80 | 120.5 months | 86% |
| 2017 | 130 | 120 months | 91% |
| 2018 | 112 | 136 months | 90% |
| 2019 | 169 | 120 months | 89% |
| 2020 | 126 | 120 months | 85% |
| 2021 | 115 | 120 months | 92% |
| 2022 | 182 | 120 months | 87% |
| 2023 | 201 | 120 months | 87% |
| 2024 | 226 | 125 months | 90% |
| 2025 | 193 | 137 months | 83% |
What the Numbers Do Not Cover
These records cannot describe the facts of any case. The approved crosswalk lists no close court-martial counterpart for this guideline, so this post reports the federal numbers on their own.
How We Counted
Everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2016 whose primary sentencing guideline was §2A2.1 (80), U.S. Sentencing Commission individual data files. The primary guideline is the one that set the offense level for the most serious count.
Federal fiscal years run from October 1 to September 30. No person, judge, or lawyer is identified in any of these records.
What to Keep in Mind
No parole in federal prison; credit for good conduct. Federal prison has no parole for crimes committed on or after November 1, 1987. A federal prisoner can earn up to 54 days of good conduct credit for each year of the sentence the judge imposed, which is about 15%. Some federal prisoners can also earn First Step Act time credits, but many offenses make a person ineligible. The numbers in this post are the sentences judges imposed, not the time people actually served.
Federal supervised release. Most federal prison sentences are followed by a term of supervised release that the judge sets as part of the sentence. A person who violates it can be sent back to prison. A court-martial cannot sentence anyone to supervision after release. Military parole and mandatory supervised release are decided later by a board, not by the judge at trial.
Who decides the sentence, and under what rules. Federal judges sentence every federal case. They must calculate the Sentencing Guidelines range, which is advisory, and must impose any mandatory minimum the statute requires unless an exception applies. In courts-martial, the accused could choose sentencing by members until the rules changed. For cases in which every guilty finding is for an offense committed after December 27, 2023, a military judge sentences alone, within sentencing parameters. Courts-martial tried in 2024 and later include both old-rule and new-rule cases, and the data cannot tell them apart.
Time periods. Federal numbers are by federal fiscal year (October 1 to September 30), based on the sentencing date. The military numbers are by trial date. Neither source has the date of the offense, so a change in law shows up in either data set gradually.
How life sentences and "time served" are counted. In the federal numbers, a life sentence is counted as 470 months, and any other sentence longer than 470 months is counted as just under 470 months. A sentence of "time served" is counted as one day (0.03 months). Averages are affected by these rules; medians much less.
Mandatory minimum sentences. Many federal statutes on drugs, images of child exploitation, child sex abuse, and firearms carry mandatory minimum prison terms. The UCMJ has mandatory minimums only for a few offenses (a dishonorable discharge or dismissal for rape and sexual assault, and life for premeditated murder). Federal sentences for these offenses are partly set by Congress, not by the judge.
Related Analysis
- Military Moves Toward Sentencing Guidelines to Mirror the Federal System (the background article)
- Federal Prosecution Analysis (all federal posts)
- How the Federal Comparison Data Was Built (sources and method)
- §2A2.1 Assault with Intent to Commit Murder: Federal Sentences, FY2016–2025 (overview)
- §2A2.1 Assault with Intent to Commit Murder: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2017 (previous or next fiscal year)
- How Often Federal Judges Sentence Outside the Guideline Range
- Mandatory Minimums: How Many Federal Sentences Are Set by Congress
- U.S. Sentencing Commission, Individual Offender Datafiles (source)
- Federal Judicial Center, Integrated Database (criminal defendants) (source)
About the author. Jocelyn C. Stewart is a retired Army JAG with more than 24 years of trying courts-martial and more than 200 jury trials. She hosts Where All The Bodies Are Buried and runs the Law Office of Jocelyn C. Stewart. This analysis is for education and information only. It is not legal advice, and every case is different.