Cite as: 523 U. S. 224 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
mum can, as Justice Stevens dissenting in McMillan pointed out, "mandate a minimum sentence of imprisonment more than twice as severe as the maximum the trial judge would otherwise have imposed." 477 U. S., at 95. It can eliminate a sentencing judge's discretion in its entirety. See, e. g., 18 U. S. C. § 2241(c) (authorizing maximum term of life imprisonment for sexual abuse of children; mandating life imprisonment for second offense). And it can produce unfairly disproportionate impacts on certain kinds of offenders. See United States Sentencing Commission, Mandatory Minimum Penalties in the Federal Criminal Justice System 26-34 (Aug. 1991) (discussing "tariff" and "cliff" effects of mandatory minimums). In sum, the risk of unfairness to a particular defendant is no less, and may well be greater, when a mandatory minimum sentence, rather than a permissive maximum sentence, is at issue.
Although McMillan pointed to a difference between mandatory minimums and higher authorized maximums, it neither "rested its judgment" on that difference, nor "rejected" the above analysis, as the dissent contends, post, at 254. Rather, McMillan said that the petitioners' argument in that case would have had "more superficial appeal" if the sentencing fact "exposed them to greater or additional punishment." 477 U. S., at 88 (emphasis added). For the reasons just given, and in light of the particular sentencing factor at issue in this case—recidivism—we should take McMillan's statement to mean no more than it said, and therefore not to make a determinative difference here.
Third, the statute's broad permissive sentencing range does not itself create significantly greater unfairness. Judges (and parole boards) have typically exercised their discretion within broad statutory ranges. See, e. g., supra, at 232, 236 (statutory examples); National Institute of Justice, Sentencing Reform in the United States (Aug. 1985) (survey of sentencing laws in the 50 States); L. Friedman, Crime and Punishment in American History 159-163 (1993)
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