§2Q1.2 Mishandling of Hazardous or Toxic Substances or Pesticides: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2019
Of the 31 people sentenced under guideline §2Q1.2 in fiscal year 2019, 17 (55%) received probation only, and 9 (29%) were sent to prison. The median prison term was 12 months. This was the largest group under this guideline in the early years of the data.
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Trends › Federal Prosecution Analysis › §2Q1.2 Mishandling of Hazardous or Toxic Substances or Pesti › §2Q1.2: FY2019
In brief: Of the 31 people sentenced under guideline §2Q1.2 in fiscal year 2019, 17 (55%) received probation only, and 9 (29%) were sent to prison. The median prison term was 12 months. This was the largest group under this guideline in the early years of the data.
This post uses the U.S. Sentencing Commission's records of 31 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.
Most People Received Probation Only
The U.S. Sentencing Commission counted 31 people sentenced in fiscal year 2019 with §2Q1.2 as the primary guideline. Probation only, with no prison or other confinement, went to 17 of them (55%). A prison term went to 9 (29%).
The 2019 group of 31 was larger than the groups in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2020. Even so, 31 people is a small number for drawing conclusions.
The Prison Terms That Were Imposed
The median prison term among the 9 people sent to prison was 12 months. A quarter received 24 months or more, and a quarter received 2 months or less.
The 2018 median was 9 months, and the 2020 median was 3 months. Those figures describe different small groups, and the records cannot show whether anything changed in how these cases were handled.
| Fiscal year | People sentenced | Median prison | Pleaded guilty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 25 | 12 months | 92% |
| 2017 | 22 | 19 months | 100% |
| 2018 | 26 | 9 months | 100% |
| 2019 | 31 | 12 months | 97% |
| 2020 | 18 | 3 months | 94% |
| 2021 | 54 | 0.2 months | 96% |
| 2022 | 49 | 2.8 months | 100% |
| 2023 | 31 | 4.4 months | 97% |
| 2024 | 35 | 4.3 months | 100% |
| 2025 | 30 | 0.3 months | 87% |
Plea Agreements and the One Trial
A total of 30 of the 31 people (97%) pleaded guilty, and 1 was convicted after a trial. Among those who pleaded guilty, 93% had a written plea agreement, and 7% pleaded guilty with no agreement.
A mandatory minimum prison term applied to 0 of the 31 people. Criminal history category I, the lowest, covered 81% of the group, and no one was in category VI.
Below-Range Sentences
Sentences were within the guideline range for 11 people (35%). They were below the range at the government's request for 12 (39%), and below the range without a government request for 8 (26%). No sentence was above the range.
Across all fiscal years 2016 to 2025 under this guideline, 37% of sentences were within the range. In federal court as a whole in 2019, the share was 51%.
Fines, Restitution, and Supervised Release
A fine was ordered for 15 people (48%), and restitution for 11 (35%). Restitution is repayment ordered to compensate for a loss, and a fine is a payment to the government. Both can be ordered in addition to a prison term or probation. Supervised release after prison was ordered for 8 (26%), with a median term of 24 months.
Federal Sentencing as a Whole in 2019
Across every guideline, 76,538 people were sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2019. Their median prison term was 21 months, and 98% pleaded guilty.
Over fiscal years 2016 to 2025, 321 people were sentenced under §2Q1.2. Of those, 35% were sent to prison, and the median prison term was 3.5 months. The 2019 median of 12 months was higher than that all-years figure.
Reading the Guideline Title and the Limits
The guideline is titled "Mishandling of Hazardous or Toxic Substances or Pesticides; Recordkeeping, Tampering, and Falsification; Unlawfully Transporting Hazardous Materials in Commerce." All 31 cases fall in the Commission's Environmental offense type.
Fiscal year 2019 ran from October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019. Acquittals and dismissals are not in the data, and prison terms are those imposed, not time served. No close court-martial counterpart exists in the approved crosswalk, so the federal numbers stand alone.
How We Counted
Everyone sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2019 whose primary sentencing guideline was §2Q1.2 (31), 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)
- §2Q1.2 Mishandling of Hazardous or Toxic Substances or Pesticides: Federal Sentences, FY2016–2025 (overview)
- §2Q1.2 Mishandling of Hazardous or Toxic Substances or Pesticides: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2018 (previous or next fiscal year)
- §2Q1.2 Mishandling of Hazardous or Toxic Substances or Pesticides: 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.