The Ex Post Facto Clause

The Ex Post Facto Clause, one of the few civil liberty protections found in the body of the US Constitution, reflects the Framers' acute concern over the tendency of legislatures to enact burdensome retroactive laws targeting unpopular individuals. In The Ex Post Facto Clause, Wayne A. Logan provides the first book-length examination of the history of the Clause and its potential for tempering the punitive impulses of modern American legislatures. Drawing on Framing Era history,...
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The Ex Post Facto Clause, one of the few civil liberty protections found in the body of the US Constitution, reflects the Framers' acute concern over the tendency of legislatures to enact burdensome retroactive laws targeting unpopular individuals. In The Ex Post Facto Clause, Wayne A. Logan provides the first book-length examination of the history of the Clause and its potential for tempering the punitive impulses of modern American legislatures. Drawing on Framing Era history, seminal Supreme Court decisions, and the global embrace of the values underlying the Ex Post Facto Clause, Logan provides a blueprint for how the Clause can play a reinvigorated and more robust role in guarding against the penal populism besetting modern American legislatures.