Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 597

529US2

Unit: $U52

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522

CARMELL v. TEXAS

Opinion of the Court

phrase “ex post facto” referred only to certain types of crimi-
Justice Chase cataloged those types as follows:
nal laws.

“I will state what laws I consider ex post facto laws,
within the words and the intent of the prohibition.
1st. Every law that makes an action done before the
passing of the law, and which was innocent when done,
criminal; and punishes such action. 2d. Every law
that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was,
3d. Every law that changes the
when committed.
punishment, and inﬂicts a greater punishment, than
the law annexed to the crime, when committed. 4th.
Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and
receives less, or different, testimony, than the law re-
quired at the time of the commission of the offence,
in order to convict the offender.”
Id., at 390 (emphasis
in original).9

It is the fourth category that is at issue in petitioner’s case.
The common-law understanding explained by Justice Chase
drew heavily upon the authoritative exposition of one of
the great scholars of the common law, Richard Wooddeson.
See id., at 391 (noting reliance on Wooddeson’s treatise).10

9 Elsewhere in his opinion, Justice Chase described his taxonomy of

ex post facto laws as follows:
“Sometimes [ex post facto laws] respected the crime, by declaring acts
to be treason, which were not treason, when committed; at other times,
they violated the rules of evidence (to supply a deﬁciency of legal proof)
by admitting one witness, when the existing law required two; by re-
ceiving evidence without oath; or the oath of the wife against the hus-
band; or other testimony, which the courts of justice would not admit;
at other times they inﬂicted punishments, where the party was not, by
law, liable to any punishment; and in other cases, they inﬂicted greater
punishment, than the law annexed to the offence.”
3 Dall., at 389 (em-
phasis deleted).

10 Wooddeson was well known for his treatise on British common law,
A Systematical View of the Laws of England, which collected various
lectures he delivered as the Vinerian Professor and Fellow of Magdalen
College at Oxford. Though not as well known today, Justice Chase noted