§2X3.1 Accessory After the Fact: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2024
In fiscal year 2024, 90 people were sentenced in federal court under guideline §2X3.1, "Accessory After the Fact," as the primary guideline. The median prison term was 48 months, which is higher than the 30 months for all guidelines that year. Of the 90, 81 (90%) received prison and 80 (89%) pleaded
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In brief: In fiscal year 2024, 90 people were sentenced in federal court under guideline §2X3.1, "Accessory After the Fact," as the primary guideline. The median prison term was 48 months, which is higher than the 30 months for all guidelines that year. Of the 90, 81 (90%) received prison and 80 (89%) pleaded guilty.
This post uses the U.S. Sentencing Commission's records of 90 people sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2024. 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.
What Prison Terms Were Imposed Under §2X3.1 in Fiscal Year 2024?
Of the 90 people sentenced, 81 (90%) received a prison term. Another 6 (7%) received probation only, with no prison or other confinement.
Among those sent to prison, the median prison term was 48 months (4 years). A quarter received 78 months or more, and a quarter received 24 months or less. The distance between the upper and lower figures is wide, so the median describes only the middle of the group.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission lists the offense type for these 90 cases as Murder in 28, Robbery in 12, Administration of Justice in 11, and Drug Trafficking in 9.
How Does 2024 Compare With Other Years?
The median prison term of 48 months in fiscal year 2024 is the highest of the 10 years in the table below. The prior year, 2023, had 82 people and a median of 26 months. The next year, 2025, had 73 people and a median of 24 months.
Over all fiscal years 2016 to 2025, 827 people were sentenced under §2X3.1. Of those, 84% went to prison, and the median prison term was 30 months.
A single year with 90 people is a small count. One year with a higher median does not show a trend, and the records cannot show why the figure differed from the years around it.
| Fiscal year | People sentenced | Median prison | Pleaded guilty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 82 | 26.1 months | 93% |
| 2017 | 99 | 25 months | 89% |
| 2018 | 90 | 27 months | 91% |
| 2019 | 88 | 36 months | 91% |
| 2020 | 55 | 30 months | 93% |
| 2021 | 71 | 27.6 months | 96% |
| 2022 | 97 | 30 months | 97% |
| 2023 | 82 | 26 months | 96% |
| 2024 | 90 | 48 months | 89% |
| 2025 | 73 | 24 months | 90% |
Guilty Pleas and Trials
In 2024, 80 of 90 (89%) pleaded guilty, and 10 were convicted after a trial. Across all guidelines in that fiscal year, 97% pleaded guilty, so a trial was more common under §2X3.1 than in federal court as a whole.
The median prison term was 48 months after a guilty plea and 48 months after a trial. The trial figure is based on only 10 people.
Among those who pleaded guilty, 95% had a written plea agreement, and 5% were straight pleas with no agreement.
Sentences Against the Guideline Range
The Commission records whether each sentence fell within the advisory guideline range. For the 90 people with this information, 37% (33) were within the range. Another 37% (33) were below the range at the government's request, and 21% (19) were below the range without a government request. Another 6% (5) were above the range.
Sentences within the range were less common under §2X3.1 than across all guidelines in 2024, where the figure was 46%. A mandatory minimum prison term applied to 1 of the 90 people (1%).
Supervised Release, Fines, and Restitution
After prison, 80 (89%) were ordered to serve supervised release, with a median term of 36 months. A fine was ordered for 4 (4%), and restitution for 17 (19%).
In criminal history, 53% were in the lowest category, category I, and 10% were in the highest, category VI. Court-martial records have no criminal history field.
What These Numbers Cannot Show
The Commission's data counts only people who were convicted and sentenced. Acquittals and dismissals are not in it. Prison terms are the terms imposed, not the time served.
Federal fiscal year 2024 ran from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024. 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 2024 whose primary sentencing guideline was §2X3.1 (90), 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)
- §2X3.1 Accessory After the Fact: Federal Sentences, FY2016–2025 (overview)
- §2X3.1 Accessory After the Fact: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2023 (previous or next fiscal year)
- §2X3.1 Accessory After the Fact: Federal Sentences, Fiscal Year 2025 (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.