10.10 Ex Post Facto Laws

• Library: Defending Criminal Cases in Virginia (Virginia CLE) (2018 Ed.)

10.10 EX POST FACTO LAWS

In Carmell v. Texas, ³⁴⁹ the United States Supreme Court reviewed the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws and described four categories of cases that fall within the definition of ex post facto laws:

1.	Laws that make criminal an action that was done before the passing of the law and was innocent when done;
2.	Laws that aggravate a crime or make it greater than it was when committed;
3.	Laws that change the punishment and inflict greater punishment than the law mandated when the crime was committed; and
4.	Laws that alter the legal rules of evidence and receive less or different testimony than the law required to convict at the time of the offense.

The Court held that the last of these categories was violated when the state of Texas altered the law after the commission of the offense so that a person could be convicted of a sexual offense solely on the basis of the testimony of the victim, when the law had previously required corroboration of the victim's testimony.

In Rogers v....