If there are problems with mandatory minimum sentences being too high in the occasional case (as some people of good faith believe), the way to deal with it is for Congress, in a thoughtful and selective way, to make a particular mandatory minimum lower.  It is not to create an essentially unlimited writ for judges, one at a time and on the basis of idiosyncrasy, ideology, skepticism about the government, or what have you, to do whatever they wish.  That may be many things, but law it is not.  
 
The second perverse result is that this bill is certain to increase crime.  One hardly need be a genius to understand that, when you have muggers, drug pushers and the rest of them in prison and off the streets, the streets are safer.  But if common sense were not enough to see this, the statistics--the astonishing fall in the crime rate over the last 25 years--should do the job.  This massive reduction in crime did not come about by magic.  It came about because the country saw that something needed to be done and did it.  Mandatory prison sentences were part of the answer.  Imprisonment is of course not the sole cause of decreasing crime--more police and better private security measures, along with other factors, also have contributed--but imprisonment is a major factor.
 
The third adverse effect of ending mandatory minimums is that it will increase the cost and litigiousness, and decrease the effectiveness, of the AUSA's work.  It is hardly a secret in the legal profession that it's cheaper for the client to settle a case than to take it to trial.  AUSA's have been successful bringing criminals to book and then in settling the cases (in the lingo of criminal law, concluding a plea bargain) in large part because of the existence of mandatory minimums, taken together with the government's exclusive power, through Section 3553(e) motions, to allow a court to go below the minimum.  
 
Obviously, if the minimum vanishes, the prosecutor's power vanishes with it.  One result is certain to be less cooperation, less effectiveness in stopping criminals, and therefore more crime victims.  When one very important tool of investigations and prosecutions is eliminated, their effectiveness will decline.  That means less justice for the public and an increase in crime victimization.  Another result will be that the government will have to invest the public's scarce tax dollars into litigating cases--cases that, under present law, the defendant has a strong incentive to settle through a plea bargain, given the lure of a lighter sentence to which only the prosecutor holds the key.  
 
Our country worked hard finally to put the rule of law in sentencing, and was rewarded with greater peace and safety for its efforts--greater peace and safety that we have had than at any time since the Baby Boomers were children.  It would be a tragedy to throw away what we labored so hard to achieve.