That's a good question. I could say this to you. With the exception...actually it's a minimum with murder. Many of the maximums have never been approached because there haven't been many cases in which that has occurred. The discretion probably hasn't been fettered, just by the way the cases have come up over time. But there have been ways around that, believe it or not, with consecutive sentences. They do get imposed. If one has multiple offences, that's how judges can sometimes get past that maximum if they see fit in that case. But the maximums now are generally set so high that we don't really come close to them, with some exceptions.
On November 23rd, 2006. See this statement in context.