§2G3.1 Importing, Mailing, or Transporting Obscene Matter: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2020
In fiscal year 2020, 21 people were sentenced in federal court under guideline §2G3.1, and all 21 pleaded guilty. Of them, 19 (90%) received a prison term, and the median prison term was 24 months. That median is lower than the 28.9 months for all fiscal years 2016 to 2025 under this guideline.
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In brief: In fiscal year 2020, 21 people were sentenced in federal court under guideline §2G3.1, and all 21 pleaded guilty. Of them, 19 (90%) received a prison term, and the median prison term was 24 months. That median is lower than the 28.9 months for all fiscal years 2016 to 2025 under this guideline.
This post uses the U.S. Sentencing Commission's records of 21 people sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2020. 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.
Prison Terms Under §2G3.1 in Fiscal Year 2020
The U.S. Sentencing Commission counted 21 people sentenced in fiscal year 2020 whose primary guideline was §2G3.1. The Sentencing Guidelines Manual titles it "Importing, Mailing, or Transporting Obscene Matter; Transferring Obscene Matter to a Minor; Misleading Domain Names." The primary guideline is the one that set the offense level for the most serious count.
Of the 21 people, 19 (90%) were sentenced to prison. The other 2 (10%) received probation only, with no prison or other confinement. The median prison term among those sent to prison was 24 months, or 2 years.
A quarter of the people sent to prison received 42 months or more. A quarter received 18.5 months or less. The prison terms are the terms imposed by the court, not the time actually served.
Every Case Ended in a Guilty Plea
All 21 people (100%) pleaded guilty, and none was convicted after a trial. Among the guilty pleas, 100% had a written plea agreement. No one entered a straight plea with no agreement.
The Commission's files count only people who were convicted and sentenced. Acquittals and dismissals are not in them. The numbers therefore describe how sentenced cases ended, not how all charged cases ended.
A mandatory minimum prison term applied to 0 of the 21 people with that information recorded.
How Sentences Compared With the Guideline Range
The guideline range is the sentencing range the court calculates before deciding on a sentence. In fiscal year 2020, 9 of the 21 sentences (43%) were within the range. Another 8 (38%) were above the range.
Sentences below the range were less common. One sentence (5%) was below the range at the government's request, and 3 (14%) were below the range without a government request.
Across all fiscal years 2016 to 2025 under §2G3.1, 38% of sentences were within the range. Across everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2020, under every guideline, 50% were within the range.
Supervised Release, Fines, and Criminal History
After prison, 18 people (86%) were ordered to serve supervised release. The median supervised release term was 36 months.
A fine was ordered for 2 people (10%). Restitution was ordered for 0 (0%).
In criminal history, 86% were in the lowest category, Category I, and 0% were in the highest, Category VI. Court-martial records have no criminal history field, so that measure exists only on the federal side.
Fiscal Year 2020 Against the Other Numbers
Fiscal year 2020 ran from October 1, 2019 to September 30, 2020. The year had 21 people under this guideline, a small count. A single year of this size does not show a trend.
For all fiscal years 2016 to 2025 under §2G3.1, the Commission counted 284 people. Of them, 89% were sent to prison, and more than 99% pleaded guilty. The median prison term for those years was 28.9 months.
For everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2020, the median prison term was 18 months. That figure covers 64,565 people under every guideline, so it is a general reference and not a like-for-like comparison. The Commission's offense type for these 21 cases is Obscenity/Other Sex Offenses.
The Years Before and After
In fiscal year 2019, 25 people were sentenced under §2G3.1. The median prison term was 25.5 months, and 32% of sentences were within the guideline range.
In fiscal year 2021, 37 people were sentenced under §2G3.1. The median prison term was 33 months, and 38% of sentences were within the range. The table below lists the count, median prison term, and plea rate for each fiscal year from 2016 to 2025.
| Fiscal year | People sentenced | Median prison | Pleaded guilty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 25 | 26 months | 96% |
| 2017 | 26 | 25.5 months | 100% |
| 2018 | 22 | 27 months | 100% |
| 2019 | 25 | 25.5 months | 100% |
| 2020 | 21 | 24 months | 100% |
| 2021 | 37 | 33 months | 100% |
| 2022 | 33 | 46 months | 100% |
| 2023 | 41 | 26.5 months | 98% |
| 2024 | 26 | 46 months | 100% |
| 2025 | 28 | 27 months | 100% |
What These Records Cannot Show
There is no close court-martial counterpart for this guideline in the approved crosswalk, so this post reports the federal numbers on their own.
The data does not show the facts of any case, the number of charges, or the reasons a court chose a particular sentence. It does not include cases that ended without a conviction.
How We Counted
Everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2020 whose primary sentencing guideline was §2G3.1 (21), 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)
- §2G3.1 Importing, Mailing, or Transporting Obscene Matter: Federal Sentences, FY2016–2025 (overview)
- §2G3.1 Importing, Mailing, or Transporting Obscene Matter: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2019 (previous or next fiscal year)
- §2G3.1 Importing, Mailing, or Transporting Obscene Matter: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2021 (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.