Federal Criminal Defense in the Northern District of California: Caseload, Sentencing and What Gets Prosecuted

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California covers the coastal region from Monterey County north to the Oregon border. It is headquartered in San Francisco, with additional courthouses in Oakland, San Jose and Eureka-McKinleyville (cand.uscourts.gov; 28 U.S.C. § 84(a)). Vikas Bajaj was admitted to practice in the Northern District of California on November 4, 2026.

The courthouses

  • San Francisco: Phillip Burton Federal Building, 450 Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102.
  • Oakland: Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building & United States Courthouse, 1301 Clay Street, Oakland, CA 94612.
  • San Jose: Robert F. Peckham Federal Building & United States Courthouse, 280 South 1st Street, San Jose, CA 95113.
  • Eureka-McKinleyville: United States Courthouse, 3140 Boeing Avenue, McKinleyville, CA 95519.

For the location guide and how a case usually moves in this district, see the firm’s Northern District of California courthouse page.

Criminal caseload (U.S. Courts, year ending March 31, 2025)

Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics for the 12 months ending March 31, 2025 report the following for this district:

  • Criminal defendants filed: 417 (compared with 448 in the prior year) (Table D, Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics, March 31, 2025).
  • Criminal cases filed: 316 (compared with 356 in the prior year) (Table D Cases, March 31, 2025).
  • Defendants terminated: 453; defendants pending: 1,145 (Table D).
  • Median time from commencement to termination for criminal defendants disposed of: 16.1 months (based on 453 defendants disposed of) (Table D-6, March 31, 2025).
  • Trial rate: 4 jury trials and 0 bench trials among those dispositions (0.9% tried; 91.4% resolved by guilty plea in the Table D-6 disposition counts) (Table D-6).

Felony filings by offense type

Table D-3A (criminal felony defendants commenced, excluding transfers, year ending March 31, 2025) shows this district’s felony offense mix:

  • Drug offenses (marijuana and all other drugs): 176 felony defendants (43.5% of the district’s 405 felony defendants commenced) (Table D-3A, year ending March 31, 2025).
  • Fraud: 84 felony defendants (20.7% of the district’s 405 felony defendants commenced) (Table D-3A, year ending March 31, 2025).
  • Firearms and explosives: 46 felony defendants (11.4% of the district’s 405 felony defendants commenced) (Table D-3A, year ending March 31, 2025).
  • Sex offenses: 20 felony defendants (4.9% of the district’s 405 felony defendants commenced) (Table D-3A, year ending March 31, 2025).

Sentencing in this district (U.S. Sentencing Commission, FY 2024)

In fiscal year 2024 (October 1, 2023 through September 30, 2024), the U.S. Sentencing Commission reported 477 sentenced individuals in this district (USSC Statistical Information Packet, FY 2024; index at the 2024 Federal Sentencing Statistics page).

  • Drug Trafficking: 212 (44.4%) of sentenced individuals in the district (USSC FY 2024, Table 1).
  • Fraud/Theft/Embezzlement: 80 (16.8%) of sentenced individuals in the district (USSC FY 2024, Table 1).
  • Firearms: 74 (15.5%) of sentenced individuals in the district (USSC FY 2024, Table 1).
  • Bribery/Corruption: 13 (2.7%) of sentenced individuals in the district (USSC FY 2024, Table 1).
  • Child Pornography: 10 (2.1%) of sentenced individuals in the district (USSC FY 2024, Table 1).

Of those sentenced individuals, 95.4% resolved by guilty plea and 4.6% by trial (USSC FY 2024, Table 2).

Among sentenced individuals, the mean sentence length was 37 months and the median was 11 months (national mean 52 months; national median 24 months) (USSC FY 2024, Table 7).

89.9% received a prison-only sentence; combining prison-only and prison-plus-alternatives, 91.4% received some term of imprisonment (USSC FY 2024, Table 5).

What the U.S. Attorney’s Office emphasizes

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California describes specialized sections that prosecute complex fraud and financial crimes (including health-care and tax fraud), general crimes such as drug and gun trafficking, child exploitation and immigration offenses, organized crime and cartels, and a Cyber & Special Prosecutions Section that covers cybercrime, trade-secret theft, public corruption, civil rights and environmental crimes (USAO-NDCA Divisions). Technology and intellectual-property-related criminal cases are a recurring feature of this Bay Area docket.

Federal defense in this district

Vikas Bajaj handles complex federal defense matters in this district.

How a federal criminal case usually moves

  • Initial appearance. A person arrested on a federal charge must be taken before a magistrate judge without unnecessary delay (Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5).
  • Detention or release. The court decides whether a person is released before trial, and on what conditions, under the Bail Reform Act (18 U.S.C. § 3142).
  • Speedy Trial Act deadlines. An indictment or information generally must be filed within 30 days of arrest, and trial generally must begin within 70 days of the indictment or first appearance, subject to excludable delay (18 U.S.C. § 3161).

Related pages

Talk to the office

The Law Office of Vikas Bajaj, APC is at The Bajaj Building, 2150 First Avenue, Suite 200, San Diego, CA 92101. Vikas Bajaj has nearly 25 years of experience and personally handles each client’s case. Call (619) 525-7005 or use the contact form.

Attorney advertising. This page is general information about federal court caseloads, sentencing statistics and procedure, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Court addresses, hours and phone numbers come from the court websites linked on this page; confirm them with the court before you go, because courts change them. Caseload and sentencing figures are from the U.S. Courts and U.S. Sentencing Commission sources cited on this page for the periods stated; they describe the district’s docket as a whole, not any particular case. Every case is different, and no particular result can be promised.

What happens next

  1. Call or send the form. Reach the office at (619) 525-7005 or use the contact form.
  2. A confidential consultation with Vikas. You speak directly with attorney Vikas Bajaj about your situation.
  3. A plan for your case. You leave with a clear plan for the next steps.