Dan Epps

Has not paid it, I guess, 30 years later.

And his argument is he didn't have to do this because actually he committed the relevant crime himself.

prior to April 24th, 1996, when the act became law, which makes this an ex post facto punishment, right?

We have a principle in constitutional law that you can't punish people for crimes under laws that were not in place when the action occurred, when the crime occurred.

Very, very longstanding principle, you know, has a lot of, you know, kind of consider it like a basic principle of legality.

But it doesn't apply to like laws generally.

Right.

It's been understood to apply to criminal laws.

Only since the 1790s.

Yeah.

And and so I think somewhat routinely there are kind of like ex post facto civil laws.

Right.

For better or for worse.

Yep.

Okay.

And so question is, this law, basically, is it civil or criminal, right?

Because if it's civil, we don't need to worry about this retroactivity ex post facto thing.

If it's criminal, if it's punishment, then it can't apply.

Answer, yes, it is criminal.

In fact, it is plainly criminal for purposes of the ex post facto clause.