Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
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529US2

Unit: $U52

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Cite as: 529 U. S. 513 (2000)

569

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

ther did Justice Washington’s opinion in Ogden v. Saunders,
12 Wheat. 213 (1827), which is quoted extensively by the
Court, ante, at 532.
In fact, the Court has never until today
relied on the fourth Calder category to invalidate the appli-
cation of a statute under the Ex Post Facto Clause.

It is true that the Court has on two occasions struck down
as ex post facto the retroactive application of rules governing
the functioning of the criminal trial process—but both deci-
In Kring v. Missouri, 107
sions have since been overruled.
U. S. 221 (1883), the Court held that Missouri was forbidden
to apply retroactively a state constitutional amendment pro-
viding that a plea of guilty to second-degree murder would
not automatically serve on retrial as an acquittal of the
charge of ﬁrst-degree murder. And in Thompson v. Utah,
170 U. S. 343 (1898), the Court held that a change in state
law reducing the number of petit jurors in criminal trials
from 12 to 8 was ex post facto because it deprived the de-
fendant of “a substantial right involved in his liberty.”
Id., at 352. The Court in Collins overruled both Kring and
Thompson v. Utah, concluding that neither decision was
“consistent with the understanding of the term ‘ex post facto
law’ at the time the Constitution was adopted.” Collins, 497
U. S., at 47, 50, 51–52.

The Court today offers a different reading of Collins.
It
concludes that Collins overruled Kring and Thompson v.
Utah because those cases improperly construed the Ex Post
Facto Clause to cover all “substantial protections,” and
that the fourth Calder category consequently remains intact.

and not future acts,” id., at 327, for only those who had aided the Confeder-
acy would be unable to take the expurgatory oath. The Court held that
the amendments violated Calder’s ﬁrst category by retroactively creating
new offenses, 4 Wall., at 327–328, and violated the third category by retro-
actively imposing new punishments, id., at 328. As for Calder’s fourth
category, the Court said only that the amendments “subvert[ed] the pre-
sumptions of innocence” by “assum[ing] that the parties [we]re guilty.”
4 Wall., at 328. As already discussed, supra, at 561, that analysis is of no
help to Carmell here.