The growing enactment of sex offender restrictions has been one of the most notable developments in criminal law in recent decades. Thus far, courts across the country have been relatively complacent in allowing legislatures to test the limits of various civil liberties. The Ex Post Facto Clause has been among the first constitutional victims of these new laws. Whereas the Clause was once construed as a substantive right protecting citizens against vindictive or arbitrary legislative actions often based upon the hysteria of the moment, it has become a hollow shell of its original form. Because courts have narrowly construed the purpose of the Clause to fair notice, the right underlying the Clause has ceased being substantive and become entirely process based. The result of this transformation is that the courts have provided a set of sure-fire legislative recipes for extremely punitive criminal statutes to survive challenges based upon the Ex Post Facto Clause. Full Article
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Extremely well written article, definitely worth the download and read. If one doesn’t think we are headed down the same road as 1930’s Germany after reading this article, he or she is sorely mistaken.