The "safety valve" provision allows judges to avoid applying mandatory minimum sentences for many first-time drug offenses. This provision will have a salutary impact on the Federal courts, in which district judges' efforts to do justice in individual cases and circuit judges' efforts to enforce determinate sentencing laws have fostered inter-court and intra-court strains. The effects of mandatory minimum sentences on the judiciary include increasing judges' workload, forcing real decisionmaking "underground," and worsening relations between trial and appellate benches. Judicial opposition to the mandatory minimums, which has been almost universal, reflects the effects of the minimums on the judiciary as well as defendants. Traditional sentencing guidelines provide for an elaborate system of departures from the guidelines; in some districts, departures are applied in nearly one-quarter of the cases. Under statutory minimum sentences, on the other hand, a sentencing judge can "depart" from the mandatory sentence only on the government's motion, usually made in a letter that indicates the defendant provided substantial assistance to the prosecution. In showing the difference between sentencing under the mandatory minimum requirement and the "safety valve" of the Crime Act, this article focuses on a representative case, United States v. Ekwunoh. In addition to being the first published case to apply the "safety valve," it may be the only case in which a defendant was first sentenced to a mandatory minimum term and then resentenced under the "safety valve." 93 footnotes