The funny logic of federal sentencing

This interesting story from the Knoxville News Sentinel describes an unusual federal sentencing in which a drug dealing defendant with old priors may qualify for a mandatory life term and yet also qualify for a lower sentence through the application of the so-called safety-valve.  Here is a snippet from the article:

Minto has been running afoul of the law since the 1960s.  In the early 1990s, he racked up two felony drug convictions.  Under federal law, that means he should be facing a mandatory life term in the marijuana-hauling venture.  “Guess what?  A funny thing happened on the way to a life sentence,” defense attorney Bruce Poston told [District Judge Roonie] Greer on Monday….

[T]he “safety valve,” a provision of the law designed to cut first-time offenders a break, [has] five criteria a defendant must meet to qualify.  Minto should not have met at least two, maybe three, of those criteria.  But he did, Poston argued. 

Because all of his prior crimes are more than 10 years old, they did not count against him in the presentencing calculation done to determine what Minto’s sentence should be under advisory federal guidelines.  Even more unusual is that Minto had “debriefed” with federal authorities about his crime — another key safety valve criteria — despite the fact that he later opted to stand trial…. 

Both sides agree that the core issue facing [Judge] Greer is what to do with a guy who, under one law, nets a life term while, under another, might draw as little as 97 months in prison.