Ellingburg v. United States · ¶62
This understanding of Calder long prevailed. Courts took the position that “the relevant line for the Clause's scope” lay between “punishments imposed in response to public offenses whether prosecuted criminally or civilly on the one hand, and purely private disputes on the other.” Brief for Professor Beth Colgan as Amicus Curiae 5. This Court confirmed, contrary to the modern precedents, that “the ex post facto effect of a law cannot be evaded by giving a civil form to that which is essentially criminal.” Burgess v. Salmon, 97 U. S. 381, 385 (1878). The infuential commentator Thomas Cooley likewise explained that a “law will be ex post facto in the constitutional sense” if it “subject[s] an individual to a pecuniary penalty” or “deprives a party of any valuable right” retroactively, even if “it does not in terms declare the acts to which the penalty is attached criminal.”…Read in context ›
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