Ellingburg v. United States · ¶55
Calder itself confirms this understanding. Justice Chase distinguished crimes not with nominally civil laws enforced by the sovereign, but with laws that merely “secure[d] pri vate rights,” like contract laws. 3 Dall., at 390. Justices Chase and Iredell used “crime” interchangeably with “offence.” Ibid.; id., at 400 (opinion of Iredell, J.). Justices Chase and Paterson said that their definitions tracked Black- stone's. See id., at 391 (opinion of Chase, J.) (“Sir William Blackstone, in his commentaries, considers an ex post facto law precisely in the same light I have done”); id., at 396 (opinion of Paterson, J.) (similar). Justice Iredell explained in a contemporaneous opinion that the Ex Post Facto Clauses could be limited to crimes because “there . . . is little reason to apprehend a legislative interference for the sake of unjustly transferring property from one man to another.”…Read in context ›
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