How have DOJ manuals and federal practice influenced prosecutorial charging decisions under § 111 in recent years?
Executive summary
Department-wide manuals and successive Attorney General memoranda have materially shaped how federal prosecutors decide what charges to bring, steering discretion through formal principles, supervisory sign-offs, and shifting enforcement priorities; those shifts—from the Sessions-era directive to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” to the more individualized Garland guidance and then to later memos reinstating harsher defaults—have created waves of guidance that influence, but do not mechanically determine, charging choices [1] [2] [3]. The reporting provided does not include direct, case-level data on 18 U.S.C. § 111 prosecutions, so any claim about concrete changes in § 111 filing rates would exceed the available sources and is therefore not asserted here [2] [4].
1. How the Manuals and Principles constrain and channel discretion
The Justice Manual and the US Attorneys’ Manual (USAM) set out "Principles of Federal Prosecution" that, while not legally binding, serve as the backbone for front-line charging decisions by summarizing considerations prosecutors must weigh and promoting “the reasoned exercise of prosecutorial authority,” thereby functioning as a template for consistency across the Department’s 93 offices [4] [1]. Those published principles explicitly orient prosecutors to evaluate victim interests, proportionality, and office-level responsibility for major decisions—creating a normative architecture that channels discretion even as individual AUSAs retain latitude [5] [4].
2. The pendulum swings: policy memos that shifted charging posture
A sequence of high-level memoranda has repeatedly shifted that architecture: the 2017 Sessions-era guidance urged prosecutors to pursue the “most serious, readily provable offense,” a posture later rescinded and softened by the Wilkinson interim guidance in 2021 and formalized in part by Garland’s December 2022 memorandum emphasizing individualized assessment and caution on mandatory minimums [1] [6] [2]. More recent memos and DOJ policy statements in 2024–25 signal a return toward prioritizing the most serious charges and tighter oversight—including supervisory approval for certain filings and an express push to use mandatory minimums more selectively or more aggressively depending on the memo—illustrating how leadership priorities cascade into charging culture [7] [3] [8] [9].
3. Operational levers: approvals, mandatory-minimum rules, and reporting
Practically, the Department has used several administrative levers to translate policy into practice: charging memos have added prior-approval requirements before bringing charges carrying mandatory minimums or before including them in plea agreements, imposed extra layers of chain-of-command review, and required consideration of other enforcement entities’ interests—measures that alter the default calculus for whether to stack counts or seek severe statutory floors [7] [1]. Congress and institutional reporting obligations also shape behavior by creating oversight incentives; while prosecutors retain broad discretion, statutory and constitutional constraints remain nontrivial limits on arbitrary charging [10] [11].
4. What this means for § 111 prosecutions—likely pathways, not proven outcomes
Although the sources do not provide direct empirical evidence on filing trends for § 111 (assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers), the doctrinal mechanics described imply two plausible effects: when Department leadership emphasizes the “most serious” available charge, prosecutors are more likely to include the harshest federal statutes available in a case’s charging instrument; conversely, guidance promoting individualized assessment and restraint on mandatory minimums counsels selection of lesser federal counts or declined enhancement where proportionality concerns prevail [1] [2] [7]. Because the reporting lacks § 111-specific data, these are reasoned inferences grounded in the described policy levers, not demonstrated statistical outcomes [2] [4].
5. Political tides, hidden agendas, and competing narratives
Shifts in charging posture have tracked administrations’ law‑and‑order versus restraint priorities, meaning memos can carry implicit political aims—deterrence and uniformity touted by proponents, and concerns about over-criminalization or weaponization voiced by critics—with law firms and defense groups warning that abrupt reversals can produce unpredictability and forum-shopping [1] [2] [3] [8]. Analysts caution that memos are blunt instruments: they can limit idiosyncratic behavior but also risk reintroducing “one-size-fits-all” incentives that produce disparate front-end charging outcomes unless accompanied by transparent data collection and oversight [12] [10].
6. Bottom line and limits of this reporting
The DOJ’s manuals and successive AG memoranda have clearly influenced charging behavior by articulating priorities, imposing supervisory gates, and conditioning use of mandatory minimums, thereby shaping prosecutors’ decision calculus in federal cases broadly; the materials provided, however, do not supply direct empirical evidence about changes in § 111 filings specifically, so any conclusion about concrete increases or decreases in § 111 prosecutions would require additional case-level DOJ data or court records not present in the cited reporting [1] [2] [7] [4].