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Should repeal of a law void previous convictions?
Scenario: A guy is convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison for wearing plaid shorts in public in 1997. Fast forward to 2004, and the law against wearing plaid shorts in public is repealed. The guy is 7 years into his 50 year sentence. But... his wearing of plaid shorts in public is no longer deemed a crime.
Should he be released, or should he serve the remainder of his sentence?
Conceptual question purposely made up so we don't get sidetracked regarding specific real crimes.
Should repeal of a law void previous convictions?
Scenario: A guy is convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison for wearing plaid shorts in public in 1997. Fast forward to 2004, and the law against wearing plaid shorts in public is repealed. The guy is 7 years into his 50 year sentence. But... his wearing of plaid shorts in public is no longer deemed a crime.
Should he be released, or should he serve the remainder of his sentence?
Conceptual question purposely made up so we don't get sidetracked regarding specific real crimes.
Should repeal of a law void previous convictions?
Scenario: A guy is convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison for wearing plaid shorts in public in 1997. Fast forward to 2004, and the law against wearing plaid shorts in public is repealed. The guy is 7 years into his 50 year sentence. But... his wearing of plaid shorts in public is no longer deemed a crime.
Should he be released, or should he serve the remainder of his sentence?
Conceptual question purposely made up so we don't get sidetracked regarding specific real crimes.
No he should not. While something like that should be considered for parole hearings and the like, when you choose to break the law, you choose to accept the potential consequences of breaking that law.
No he should not. While something like that should be considered for parole hearings and the like, when you choose to break the law, you choose to accept the potential consequences of breaking that law.
Someone here plays it Lawfully Good, me I prefer Chaotic Good.
No he should not. While something like that should be considered for parole hearings and the like, when you choose to break the law, you choose to accept the potential consequences of breaking that law.
All depends. If gay marriage is struck down in a state where it was authorized, would it make sense that the couples were no longer married? A bit of a mess.
Pants? Let him out.
Excellent post and excellent point about differing between constitutional vs societal changes.I voted yes, although this issue took some deep thought before responding to .
I had to break it down into two segments: Repeal was because the law was found unconstitutional; Repeal because social attitudes had changed and it was no longer considered a criminal offense.
If the law was repealed because it was deemed unconstitutional, then of course the person should be released immediately and his record completely cleared. That's because his original conviction was a violation of his constitutional rights and he never really committed any wrong-doing in the first place.
The second one is trickier, because even though a law has been repealed after a public change of heart; as Redress states in (his/her?) quote, the person should have been aware at the time that he was committing a criminal offense and in making the choice to do so also agreed to submit to the penalty if caught.
Now we all know that while the dictum "Ignorance of the Law is no excuse" is upheld by courts even though they know there are too many laws for people (even lawyers, judges or cops) to have memorized, it's still done because otherwise every defendant would claim ignorance and expect to be set free.
Still, in my opinion the fact that society has determined this activity is no longer illegal obviates the need to either continue punishment or maintain any record of such criminality. So I believe the person should not only be immediately released from all obligations, but his record should also be completely cleared. Why? Reall we live in an era of data-mining and background check businesses, so we should act to prevent his past from being used against him in this new era where the original act is no longer considered to be criminal.
Should repeal of a law void previous convictions?
Scenario: A guy is convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison for wearing plaid shorts in public in 1997. Fast forward to 2004, and the law against wearing plaid shorts in public is repealed. The guy is 7 years into his 50 year sentence. But... his wearing of plaid shorts in public is no longer deemed a crime.
Should he be released, or should he serve the remainder of his sentence?
Conceptual question purposely made up so we don't get sidetracked regarding specific real crimes.
What is the purpose of the law? If the people are to always be subjugated to the arbitrary whims of corrupt and misguided lawmakers, only then can the case be made that anyone who brakes a law remains eternally culpable for it. But if the purpose of the law is to ensure maximum liberty by prohibiting only actions of force and fraud and by limiting certain freedoms to the extent necessary to prevent mutual infringement, then nobody is obligated to follow any laws that do otherwise and no case can be made that anyone is culpable for what should never have been a crime in the first place.I think a case could be argued that the ex post facto principle applies the other way as well; that someone who did something that was illegal at the time he did it is still culpable for that crime even if the act that he committed has since been legalized.
·I can imagine there being situations where it is harmful at one time to engage in a particular behavior, to the degree that it is reasonable to enact laws against that behavior and to prosecute as criminals those who engage in it; and the situation to later change so that the same behavior is no longer harmful, and it is no longer reasonable to prosecute people as criminals for doing it; but where it is still reasonable for those who were convicted of that behavior when it was illegal to continue to be treated as criminals.
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What is the purpose of the law? If the people are to always be subjugated to the arbitrary whims of corrupt and misguided lawmakers, only then can the case be made that anyone who brakes a law remains eternally culpable for it. But if the purpose of the law is to ensure maximum liberty by prohibiting only actions of force and fraud and by limiting certain freedoms to the extent necessary to prevent mutual infringement, then nobody is obligated to follow any laws that do otherwise.
I never said anything should ever be blindly assumed. It's a matter of moral common sense. What you describe is not a case where the laws would be repealed but where special clauses of existing laws only take effect under special circumstances. Anyone convicted then would still be culpable after the circumstances have improved because the law would still exist even if it no longer applies. That's not the same as when a law is repealed. When the legislature repeals a law, or it's stuck down by the SC, it means the law is unjust and should never have existed in the first place, which means it was wrong to convict anyone under it.I don't think it can always be blindly assumed that because something that was once illegal is now illegal, that those who were prosecuted for doing it while it was illegal should no longer be culpable.
It's difficult to think of a good example, and this is the best I can come up with…
Suppose that there comes to be a severe shortage of some vital resource, that everyone needs; and that laws are enacted to require certain practices regarding conservation, rationing, and fair distribution of this resource, and which make it a crime to waste this resource or to hog more than one's fair share thereof.
Now if later, this resource again becomes abundant, and there is no longer any need to ration or conserve it, then the laws covering this should rightly be repealed; and nobody should thereafter be prosecuted for wasting or hogging this resource. But in such a situation, I would have to say that those who were convicted of crimes that involved wasting or hogging this resource while it was scarce would still remain just as culpable. They were convicted of actions that were harmful and illegal when they took them, even if these same actions, if committed now, no longer would be harmful or illegal.
I don't think it can always be blindly assumed that because something that was once illegal is now illegal, that those who were prosecuted for doing it while it was illegal should no longer be culpable.
It's difficult to think of a good example, and this is the best I can come up with…
Suppose that there comes to be a severe shortage of some vital resource, that everyone needs; and that laws are enacted to require certain practices regarding conservation, rationing, and fair distribution of this resource, and which make it a crime to waste this resource or to hog more than one's fair share thereof.
Now if later, this resource again becomes abundant, and there is no longer any need to ration or conserve it, then the laws covering this should rightly be repealed; and nobody should thereafter be prosecuted for wasting or hogging this resource. But in such a situation, I would have to say that those who were convicted of crimes that involved wasting or hogging this resource while it was scarce would still remain just as culpable. They were convicted of actions that were harmful and illegal when they took them, even if these same actions, if committed now, no longer would be harmful or illegal.
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