The DETERRENCE Act adds a new aggravating factor across several federal criminal statutes: if an offense is committed knowingly at the direction of or in coordination with a foreign government or an agent of a foreign government, courts may increase sentences by specified amounts. The bill amends 18 U.S.C. 1201 (kidnapping), 1958 (murder-for-hire), 115 (influencing/impeding federal officials), 2261A (stalking), 1114 (protection of officers), and 1751 (assassination/protected-person offenses), and makes a handful of technical conforming edits.
This matters because the bill creates a modular aggravator prosecutors can invoke across a range of violent and coercive offenses tied to foreign-state direction. That expands prosecutorial leverage at sentencing, places new proof and discovery demands on defense teams and courts (including likely classified evidence questions), and raises practical questions about how coordination with a foreign government will be proven and adjudicated in ordinary criminal trials.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill authorizes courts to increase sentences when an offense is committed knowingly at the direction of or in coordination with a foreign government or its agent. The enhancement amounts vary by statute and circumstance (generally up to 5 or 10 years, with some narrower caps such as 30 months or 5 years for attempts).
Who It Affects
Federal prosecutors and defense attorneys handling kidnapping, murder-for-hire, stalking, assaults on federal officials, assassination statutes, and related conspiracies will face the new aggravator. Courts, intelligence agencies, and U.S. officials who may be victims (and their families) are also directly implicated because of evidentiary and protection issues.
Why It Matters
By codifying foreign-government coordination as an aggravating factor, the bill gives DOJ an explicit sentencing tool short of terrorism designations. That changes charging and plea dynamics in cases with international links and forces the criminal justice system to resolve evidentiary and classification questions about foreign-state involvement.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill inserts a common aggravating clause into multiple federal criminal provisions: when an offense is committed "knowingly at the direction of or in coordination with a foreign government or an agent of a foreign government," a court may increase an offender's sentence by a statutorily specified amount. The text adds these enhancements to kidnapping (18 U.S.C. 1201), murder-for-hire (18 U.S.C. 1958), the statute protecting federal officials (18 U.S.C. 115), the federal stalking statute (18 U.S.C. 2261A), the statute protecting officers and employees (18 U.S.C. 1114), and the presidential/protected-person assassination provisions (18 U.S.C. 1751).
Several of these amendments also address conspiracies and attempts, and the bill introduces narrow, graduated caps on enhancement lengths depending on the underlying conduct.
Across the statutes the enhancement is discretionary — courts "may" increase a sentence — and the bill prescribes different maximum increases: for some offenses the enhancement is up to 10 years, for attempts up to 5 years, and for certain stalking offenses a lower baseline increase of up to 30 months is available. The language consistently requires knowledge: the offender must have committed the offense "knowingly" at the direction of or in coordination with a foreign government or its agent; for conspiracies the text requires that at least one conspirator acted in coordination with a foreign government and that the convicted conspirator knew of that coordination.The bill also makes small technical edits elsewhere to conform cross-references to the amended murder-for-hire provision and inserts short headings (e.g., "DEFINITION.") before existing definitional subsections.
It does not create new federal crimes or add mandatory minimums; rather it creates an aggravator prosecutors can seek at sentencing or factor into plea negotiations. Implementing those enhancements in practice will frequently invoke classified or intelligence-derived evidence and may require courts to balance disclosure obligations under the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) and related discovery rules against defendants' rights.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill authorizes up to a 10-year sentence increase for many covered offenses when committed knowingly at the direction of or in coordination with a foreign government or its agent.
For kidnapping (18 U.S.C. 1201) the bill allows up to 10 extra years on convictions, and up to 5 extra years for attempts; the conspiracy provision requires both that one conspirator coordinated with a foreign government and that the convicted conspirator knew about that coordination.
The murder-for-hire statute (18 U.S.C. 1958) gains a two-tier enhancement: up to 5 years generally for foreign-directed offenses, and up to 10 years when personal injury results; the bill also makes technical conforming edits to two other federal statutes that reference 1958.
The stalking statute (18 U.S.C. 2261A) receives a graduated enhancement scheme: up to 5 years for serious injury/weapon/child-victim scenarios, up to 10 years for death, and a 30-month increase for other foreign-coordinated cases.
Assaults on federal officials and protection statutes (18 U.S.C. 115 and 1114) and presidential-protected-person offenses (18 U.S.C. 1751) all gain potential 10-year enhancements tied to foreign-government direction or coordination, with specific triggers (e.g.
weapon use, bodily injury, or death) affecting the amount.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Kidnapping: up to 10-year enhancement; conspiracy and attempt rules
This amendment inserts an aggravator into the kidnapping statute allowing courts to add up to 10 years when a kidnapping was carried out knowingly at the direction of or in coordination with a foreign government or its agent. It separately addresses conspiracies: the enhancement applies to a conspirator only if at least one co-conspirator knowingly coordinated with a foreign government and the convicted conspirator knew of that coordination. Attempts carry a lower cap (up to 5 years). Practically, the provision extends exposure for defendants in multi‑actor kidnappings with transnational links and forces prosecutors to prove both the foreign coordination and the defendant's mental state.
Murder-for-hire: dual-tier enhancements and conforming edits
The bill creates two possible enhancements under the murder-for-hire statute: a discretionary up-to-5-year increase where the offense was foreign-directed, and an up-to-10-year increase when the foreign link is present and personal injury results. This section also renames an existing subsection heading to "DEFINITIONS" and triggers technical edits to other federal statutes that cross-reference section 1958. For prosecutors, this provides a calibration: a modest enhancement for foreign-directed solicitations and a larger one when the underlying conduct causes injury.
Influencing or retaliating against federal officials: gradated assault enhancements
Amendments to the statute penalizing threats or injury to federal officials add enhancements tied to foreign-state coordination. The bill sets stepwise caps: up to 5 years for offenses involving physical-contact assaults or intent to commit a felony, up to 10 years for assaults causing bodily injury (including serious injury), and up to 10 years for murder or attempted murder. The text references other federal assault provisions (e.g., sexual assault provisions) to capture a broad range of injurious conduct when foreign coordination is present.
Stalking: graduated increases and a 30-month baseline option
The stalking statute gains explicit enhancements when stalking is committed knowingly under foreign-government direction or coordination. The measure separates high‑severity outcomes (death, serious bodily injury, child victims, weapon use) — which trigger up to 5 or 10 years — from other foreign‑coordinated stalking, for which Congress prescribes a lower, 30‑month enhancement. The structure signals congressional intent to calibrate punishment to the harm while still treating foreign coordination as an aggravator even in non-lethal stalking cases.
Protection of officers and employees: 10-year foreign-directed enhancement
This amendment allows courts to add up to 10 years for attacks on officers or employees of the United States when the attack was knowingly at the direction of or in coordination with a foreign government or agent. The text is concise: it does not alter the underlying elements of the offense but layers an extra potential penalty tied to foreign involvement, expanding exposure for offenders in politically or diplomatically connected incidents.
Assassination and protected-person offenses: conspiracy and weapon/injury triggers
The presidential/protected-person statute receives multiple enhancements: up to 10 years where assassination, kidnapping, or assault offenses involve foreign-government coordination; conspiracy provisions mirror the kidnapping approach by requiring both an actor's coordination with a foreign government and the convicted conspirator's knowledge of that coordination; and weapon use or resulting personal injury also serve as triggers for the higher enhancement. The section therefore broadens sentencing exposure in plots targeting high‑level officials when foreign-state actors are implicated.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Criminal Justice across all five countries.
Explore Criminal Justice in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Victims of foreign-directed violent or coercive crimes — the law creates an explicit aggravator prosecutors can use to increase sentences when a foreign government is involved, providing a statutory recognition of the heightened culpability of state-directed harm.
- Federal prosecutors (DOJ) — they gain an additional, statutory sentencing lever that can be deployed in charging, plea negotiations, and at sentencing without invoking terrorism statutes or treason provisions.
- Federal officials and their families — the amendments to 115, 1114, and 1751 signal statutory prioritization and potentially stronger deterrence where foreign actors target officials or their relatives.
Who Bears the Cost
- Defendants with any foreign contacts or co-conspirators — the conspiracy provisions expand exposure where one participant coordinates with a foreign government, and defendants may face significantly higher sentences if prosecutors prove the aggravator.
- Defense teams and courts — proving or defending against foreign-government coordination will increase litigation complexity, likely requiring classified or sensitive evidence and producing more CIPA proceedings, sealed filings, and in-camera hearings.
- Intelligence and law enforcement agencies — the need to produce evidence of foreign coordination in criminal trials may require additional interagency work, possible declassification decisions, and more resources devoted to supporting prosecutions.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between deterrence and due process: Congress seeks to deter state‑directed transnational crimes by raising penalties, but doing so requires courts and prosecutors to make often difficult, sensitive factual findings about foreign-state coordination—findings that implicate classified intelligence, diplomatic concerns, and uncertainties about agency and coordination definitions, and that may strain defendants' ability to receive full, adversarial proof of the government’s case.
The bill raises several implementation and doctrinal questions. First, the operative phrase — "knowingly at the direction of or in coordination with a foreign government or an agent of a foreign government" — mixes a mens rea requirement ("knowingly") with a modal fact (direction/coordination), but it leaves undefined what counts as "coordination" or an "agent" in practice.
Prosecutors will need to show both foreign-state involvement and the defendant's awareness, but the statute does not state whether circumstantial proof (communications with intermediaries, payments routed through foreign entities) suffices or whether a higher evidentiary threshold is expected.
Second, many cases will involve classified intelligence or sensitive sources that the government may want to use to prove foreign coordination. The bill does not provide special procedures beyond existing discovery and CIPA frameworks, so expect litigation over how to present classified evidence without compromising sources and the potential for delayed or constrained prosecutions.
Third, the enhancements are discretionary and silent about whether they stack across multiple statutes, whether they must run consecutively, and how sentencing guidelines should incorporate them; that ambiguity will produce uneven sentencing outcomes until courts and the Sentencing Commission provide guidance.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.