Will Baude

This is a crummy one.

Does that mean you have to do it?

Right.

You see all these billionaires trying to flee California before they enact an ex post facto wealth tax.

Right.

Yeah.

So I agree, although I think there is an overarching theme here, which is just that the hard cases under the ex post facto clause are where the government says this is civil, but we're worried it's kind of de facto criminal.

As the test is like, well, we mostly defer to what the government says, but we got to kind of make sure, you know.

But here, as I understand it, he's like, look, the government basically says it's criminal.

Like the statute basically admits it's criminal.

So.

Maybe, although I think there are other circuits that had said this too, right?

Or was the circuit the only one?

I mean, because you want the other circuits to correct those two.

I think similar issues could still arise because what if you, I mean, what if somebody tried to, you know, what if the penalties change or are adjusted for inflation?

They have to ask, can you apply them retroactively or what if you, I don't know.

You could easily have denied cert on this on the grounds that, again, this goes to the error correction point, on the grounds that while this is obviously wrong, it doesn't really matter.

Yeah.

The court did not deny cert.

So I think in the Civil War, Congress imposed a sort of presection three like loyalty oath requirement.