Here’s where the problem begins.  Say you’re a juror intent on giving the defendant a fair punishment for his crime.  The system works like this:  The jury is fair in determining guilt, the judge is fair in determining sentencing.  The result is a just punishment proportional to the crime committed.  Unless you have mandatory minimums, in which case the whole concept of justice goes out the window.

Now the guilty party is subject to a completely inhuman and uncaring law which can not be bent, or flexed based upon circumstance.  The jury is not told if there are mandatory minimums at hand, because sentencing is not supposed to be their concern.  But as soon as you say there will be no human discretion in the sentencing process, it becomes absolutely the concern of the jury:  They are the only force capable of determining the proportionality of the punishment.

Deceiving the jury as to the Judge’s ability to affect punishment, is a contemptible act, violating the very principle by which American justice stands:  Fairness.
With mandatory minimums we’ve decided we will not be fair, and the whole justice process becomes a obfuscated orchistration with no other purpose but to make us feel good while we ignorantly perpetuate a flawed and dangerous sham.