Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 604

529US2

Unit: $U52

[09-26-01 10:36:40] PAGES PGT: OPIN

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

529

Opinion of the Court

would be required under the two-witness law,18 and despite
the repeated importuning against the passing of an ex post
facto law.19 The bill then was taken up and passed by the

18 See, e. g., id., at 270 (“I believe this House can’t take away any Persons
Life upon less Evidence than Inferiour Courts could do”); id., at 288 (“Shall
we that are the Supream Authority . . . go upon less Evidence to satisﬁe
ourselves of Sir John Fenwick’s Guilt, than other Courts?”); id., at 317
(“I can’t satisﬁe my self in my Conscience, and should think some mis-
fortune might follow me and my Posterity, if I passed Sentence upon
Sir John Fenwick’s Life, upon less Evidence than the Law of England
requires”); id., at 342 (“But the Liberty of the People of England is very
much concerned in the Revocation of that Act; and none of the Arguments
that have been used can Convince me, That I ought to give Judgment
upon less Evidence than is required by that Act”).

19 See, e. g., id., at 145 (“I can’t say, but those Persons, who in the last
Sessions of Parliament, were Imprisoned by an Act Ex Post Facto, and
subsequent to the Fact Complained of, yet when it was passed into a
Law, they were Legally Detained: but, I hope, I may take notice of their
Case, as some kind of Reason against this, to the end that those Laws
may not grow familiar, that they may not easily be obtained; because
Precedents generally grow, and as that Law Ex Post Facto, extended to
Liberty, so this extends to Life . . .”); id., at 152–153 (“It would be too
much at once to make a subsequent Law to condemn a Man to Death . . . .
I am afraid none are safe if that be admitted, That a subsequent Law may
take away a Man’s Life . . .” (emphasis added)); id., at 197 (“Sir, It hath
been urged to you, of what ill Consequence it would be, and how much
Injustice to make a Law to Punish a Man, Ex post Facto . . .”); id., at 256
(“But how shall they Judge? By the Laws in being. . . . That you may
Judge that to be Treason in this House, that was not so by the Law before.
So that give me leave to say, therefore there is no such Power reserved to
the Parliament, to Declare any thing Treason that is not Treason before”
(emphasis added)); id., at 282–283 (“[F]or according to your Law, no
Man shall be declared Guilty of Treason, unless there be two Witnesses
against him . . . . But how can a Man satisﬁe his own Conscience, to
Condemn any Man by a Law that is subsequent to the Fact? For that is
the Case . . .” (emphasis added)); id., at 305 (“I think I may conﬁdently
afﬁrm, there is not so much as one Precedent where a Person . . . was
taken away from his Tryal,
. and cut off extrajudicially by an Act
made on purpose, Ex post Facto”); id., at 331–332 (“Those Acts that
have been made since, are made certainly to provide, That in no Case
whatsoever, a Man should be so much as accused without two Witnesses

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