A mandatory minimum is a floor set by statute rather than by the guidelines. Where the minimum exceeds the calculated guideline range, the guideline provision on statutory limits makes the minimum the range. Two routes lead below: a government motion reflecting substantial assistance, and the safety valve for qualifying defendants meeting statutory criteria. Triggers include drug type and quantity, prior convictions noticed by information, and firearm counts that run consecutively.
A profile is a mixture when the peaks at one or more loci cannot come from a single person. Interpretation begins by assigning a number of contributors, an assignment that is uncertain and that constrains every later step. Low template amounts produce dropout, drop-in, stutter and unbalanced peaks, which is why analytical and stochastic thresholds exist. Inclusion statistics discard information, and the NIST foundation review presses laboratories to work inside a validated range.
Rule 17(c)(2) permits a court to quash or modify a subpoena if compliance would be unreasonable or oppressive. A grand jury subpoena carries a presumption that it was issued for a proper purpose, so the moving party bears the burden of showing that there is no reasonable possibility the material sought will produce information relevant to the investigation. Privilege, burden and overbreadth are the grounds most often argued, and modification is the more common result than outright quashing.
The petty offense exception applies where the client has committed only one crime involving moral turpitude, the maximum penalty possible for that offense does not exceed one year of imprisonment, and the sentence imposed was six months or less. The first ceiling is a property of the statute, not of the disposition, so a charge carrying a longer maximum fails even where the term imposed is trivial. The second counts a suspended sentence at its pronounced length.
A motion for a new trial grounded on newly discovered evidence must be filed within three years after the verdict or finding of guilty, while any other ground carries a fourteen-day deadline. Most circuits require that the evidence was discovered after trial, that diligence would not have found it earlier, that it is material rather than merely cumulative or impeaching, and that it would probably produce an acquittal on retrial.
Federal law authorizes counsel to obtain expert services on an ex parte showing that the services are necessary and the defendant cannot afford them, subject to compensation caps that can be exceeded with certification. Due process separately requires meaningful access to a mental health expert where the defendant's mental condition is a significant factor. A defense examination stays confidential until the expert is designated to testify.
The deportability and inadmissibility grounds for drug offenses reach any conviction relating to a controlled substance, which has been read to include possession of paraphernalia, being under the influence, and presence where drugs are used. The narrow marijuana exception is written around a single offense of simple possession of a small quantity and does not obviously extend to those charges. No sentence figure and no fine-only disposition removes the ground.
The immigration statute borrows its crime of violence definition from the federal criminal code. The residual half of that definition, which asked whether an offense carried a substantial risk that force would be used, was held unconstitutionally vague as incorporated into the immigration provision. What survives requires an element of the use, attempted use or threatened use of physical force, read as force capable of causing physical pain or injury.
Criminal bail terminates only the jail's authority to hold on the pending charge. Where an immigration hold has been lodged, meeting the bail conditions produces a transfer rather than liberty, and the funds spent are gone from the custody fight that will actually decide whether the client goes home. Counsel should confirm whether a request exists, what the local jurisdiction does with it, and whether the charge makes later detention non-discretionary before advising a family to post.
Federal adjudicators honor a state vacatur granted for a defect in the underlying proceeding and disregard one granted for hardship or rehabilitation. That distinction is decided by material generated during the criminal case: whether the required advisement appears on the record, how narrowly the factual basis was stated, whether a waiver was taken from a client who understood what was being surrendered, and what the file records about the advice given.
Probabilistic genotyping weighs the genotype combinations consistent with an observed DNA profile and reports a likelihood ratio comparing two propositions. Semi-continuous models use the presence or absence of variants; fully continuous models also use peak heights. Developmental validation is performed by the developer, internal validation by the laboratory that runs it. Access disputes concern source code and the case run record, and the two are separate requests.
Where a state court declined to reach a claim on an adequate and independent state procedural ground, a federal court will not review it. Adequate means the rule was firmly established and regularly followed; independent means the ruling did not rest on federal law. The bar is escaped by showing cause external to the defense plus actual and substantial prejudice, or by new reliable evidence such that no reasonable juror would have found the petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
