§2A2.3 Assault: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2019
The 111 people sentenced in fiscal year 2019 under §2A2.3, "Assault," are the largest yearly count for this guideline from 2016 to 2025. Of those, 68 (61%) received prison, with a median prison term of 7 months. A total of 6 were convicted after a trial.
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In brief: The 111 people sentenced in fiscal year 2019 under §2A2.3, "Assault," are the largest yearly count for this guideline from 2016 to 2025. Of those, 68 (61%) received prison, with a median prison term of 7 months. A total of 6 were convicted after a trial.
This post uses the U.S. Sentencing Commission's records of 111 people sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2019. 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.
The Largest Yearly Count Under This Guideline
The U.S. Sentencing Commission counted 111 people whose primary guideline was §2A2.3 in fiscal year 2019. The year before had 82 people, and the next year had 79. The table below lists every year.
The Commission lists the offense type for all 111 cases as Assault. A higher count says only that more people were sentenced under the guideline in that year. The records cannot show the reason for any change in the count.
| Fiscal year | People sentenced | Median prison | Pleaded guilty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 77 | 5.8 months | 97% |
| 2017 | 105 | 6.7 months | 96% |
| 2018 | 82 | 7.1 months | 96% |
| 2019 | 111 | 7 months | 95% |
| 2020 | 79 | 7 months | 96% |
| 2021 | 76 | 6.6 months | 99% |
| 2022 | 68 | 6 months | 97% |
| 2023 | 62 | 6.3 months | 95% |
| 2024 | 51 | 6 months | 92% |
| 2025 | 47 | 6 months | 96% |
Prison, Probation, and the Length of Terms
A prison term went to 68 of the 111 (61%), and 40 (36%) received probation only, with no prison or other confinement. Over fiscal years 2016 to 2025, 758 people were sentenced under this guideline, and 62% of them went to prison. The 2019 share was about the same.
The median prison term was 7 months. A quarter received 12 months or more, and a quarter received 4 months or less. The median for everyone sentenced in federal court in 2019 was 21 months, which is higher than the median under this guideline.
After prison, 64 people (58%) were ordered to serve supervised release. The median term was 12 months.
Trials in 2019
A total of 105 (95%) pleaded guilty, and 6 were convicted after a trial. For all guidelines in 2019, guilty pleas were 98%, so guilty pleas were less common under this guideline.
The median prison term was 7 months after a guilty plea and 14 months after a trial. The trial figure is based on 3 people who were convicted at trial and sent to prison. The records used here do not give prison terms for the remaining trial cases.
Of the guilty pleas, 86% had a written plea agreement, and 10% were straight pleas with no agreement. A mandatory minimum prison term applied to 0 of the 107 people with that information recorded.
Position Against the Guideline Range
Within the advisory range: 71% (79). Below the range at the government's request: 9% (10). Below the range without a government request: 14% (15). Above the range: 6% (7).
The share within the range was higher than the 51% for all federal cases in 2019. It was higher than the 65% in 2018 and lower than the 78% in 2020 for this guideline.
Fines, Restitution, and Criminal History
A fine was ordered for 5 people (5%), and restitution for 19 (17%). In criminal history, 52% were in the lowest category, category I, and 3% were in the highest, category VI. Court-martial records have no criminal history field.
What the Counts Cannot Show
Only people who were convicted and sentenced appear in this data. A person who was acquitted, or whose case was dismissed, is absent. The prison terms reported are those the court imposed, which may differ from time served. Fiscal year 2019 began October 1, 2018 and ended September 30, 2019.
There is no close court-martial counterpart for this guideline in the approved crosswalk, so this post reports the federal numbers on their own.
How We Counted
Everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2019 whose primary sentencing guideline was §2A2.3 (111), 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.
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)
- §2A2.3 Assault: Federal Sentences, FY2016–2025 (overview)
- §2A2.3 Assault: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2018 (previous or next fiscal year)
- §2A2.3 Assault: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2020 (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.