Ellingburg v. United States · ¶6

When determining whether a law violates the Ex Post Facto Clause, the Court must evaluate whether the law imposes a criminal or penal sanction as opposed to a civil remedy. Assessing whether “a statutory scheme is civil or criminal is first of all a question of statutory construction” that requires the Court to “consider the statute's text and its structure.” Smith v. Doe, 538 U. S. 84, 92 (2003) (quotation marks omitted).

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