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529US2

Unit: $U52

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534

CARMELL v. TEXAS

Opinion of the Court

a profound unfairness in Parliament’s retrospectively alter-
ing the very rules it had established, simply because those
rules prevented the conviction of the traitor—notwithstand-
ing the fact that Fenwick could not truly claim to be “inno-
(At least one historian has concluded that his guilt
cent.”
was clearly established, see 9 Macaulay 203–204, and the de-
bate in the House of Commons bears out that conclusion,
see, e. g., Proceedings 219, 230, 246, 265, 289.) Moreover, the
pertinent rule altered in Fenwick’s case went directly to
the general issue of guilt, lowering the minimum quantum
of evidence required to obtain a conviction. The Framers,
quite clearly, viewed such maneuvers as grossly unfair, and
adopted the Ex Post Facto Clause accordingly.24

VI

The United States as amicus asks us to revisit the ac-
curacy of the fourth category as an original matter. None
of its reasons for abandoning the category is persuasive.

24 Fenwick’s case also illustrates how such ex post facto laws can op-
erate similarly to retrospective increases in punishment by adding to the
coercive pressure to accept a plea bargain. When Fenwick was ﬁrst
brought before the Lord Justices, he was given an opportunity to make
a confession to the King. Though he squandered the opportunity by au-
thoring a plain contrivance, Fenwick could have reasonably assumed that
a sincere confession would have been rewarded with leniency—the func-
tional equivalent of a plea bargain. See 9 Macaulay 125. When the bill
of attainder was taken up by the House of Commons, there is evidence
that this was done to pressure Fenwick into making the honest confession
he had failed to make before. See, e. g., Proceedings 197 (“ ’Tis a Matter
of Blood, ’tis true, but I do not aim at this Gentleman’s Life in it . . . all
I Propose by it, is to get his Confession”); id., at 235 (“[W]e do not aim at
Sir John Fenwick’s Blood, (God forbid we should) but at his Confession”);
id., at 255 (“Why, give me leave to say to you, ’tis a new way not known
in England, that you will Hang a Man unless he will Confess or give
Evidence . . .”). And before the House of Lords, Fenwick was explicitly
threatened that unless he confessed, they would proceed to consider the
bill against him.

9 Macaulay 218.