Stogner v. California | |
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Argued March 31, 2003 Decided June 26, 2003 | |
Full case name | Marion Reynolds Stogner v. California |
Citations | 539 U.S. 607 ( more ) 123 S. Ct. 2446; 156 L. Ed. 2d 544 |
Case history | |
Prior | Stogner v. Superior Court of Contra Costa County, 93 Cal. App. 4th 1229, 114 Cal. Rptr. 2d 37 (App. 1st Dist. 2001); cert. granted, 537 U.S. 1043(2002). |
Holding | |
A law enacted after expiration of a previously applicable limitations period violates the ex post facto clause when it is applied to revive a previously time-barred prosecution. [1] | |
Court membership | |
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Case opinions | |
Majority | Breyer, joined by Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, Ginsburg |
Dissent | Kennedy, joined by Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas |
Laws applied | |
U.S. Const. art. I, sec. 9; U.S. Const. art. I, sec. 10; U.S. Const. amend. XIV |
Stogner v. California, 539 U.S. 607 (2003), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which held that California's retroactive extension of the statute of limitations for sexual offenses committed against minors was an unconstitutional ex post facto law. [2]
In 1994, the California State Legislature enacted a specific statute of limitations (PC Section 803(g) (3)(A)) for child sexual abuse crimes, allowing charges to be filed within one year of the time that the crime was reported to the police. It allowed, when the prior limitations period has expired, criminal prosecution on child molesting charges many years after its occurrence.
In 1998, petitioner Marion Stogner was indicted for molesting for acts committed between 1955 and 1973, under California's specific statute of limitations. It occurred after Stogner's two sons were both charged with molestation. During the state's investigation of one of the sons, Stogner's daughters reported that their father sexually abused them for years when they were under the age of 14. The grand jury found probable cause to charge Stogner with molestation of his two daughters. [3] [1]
Stogner claimed that the statute violates the ex post facto law and due process clauses by retroactively invoking laws that were not in place at the time of the alleged offenses. At the time that the crimes were allegedly committed, the statute of limitations was three years. The victims, his two daughters, said that they had not reported sooner because they were in fear of their father. The applicable California law had been revised in 1996, extending the statute of limitations retroactively. [2]
The retroactive implementation of the laws was the focus of Stogner's motion and appeal, claiming that the law violated his rights under the ex post facto clause of the U.S. Constitution, as well as his rights to due process. The trial court initially agreed with Stogner, but the Court of Appeal of California reversed and his motion for dismissal was denied. Stogner appealed on writ of certiorari to the Court of Appeal of California, first appellate district; the Court of Appeal affirmed. [1]
Stogner ultimately appealed to the US Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court upheld the trial court's ruling that the law was a violation of the ex post facto clause of the constitution by a split 5–4 decision. [2] The Supreme Court held that "a law enacted after expiration of a previously applicable limitations period violates the Ex Post Facto Clause when it is applied to revive a previously time-barred prosecution." [1]
A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. In most jurisdictions, such periods exist for both criminal law and civil law such as contract law and property law, though often under different names and with varying details.
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. It was ratified in 1791 as part of the United States Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court has applied all but one of this amendment's protections to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
An ex post facto law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law. In criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in when it was committed; it may change the punishment prescribed for a crime, as by adding new penalties or extending sentences; it may extend the statute of limitations; or it may alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime likelier than it would have been when the deed was committed.
The year and a day rule is associated with the former common law standard that death could not be legally attributed to acts or omissions that occurred more than a year and a day before the death.
Rogers v. Tennessee, 532 U.S. 451 (2001), was a U.S. Supreme Court case holding that there is no due process violation for lack of fair warning when pre-existing common law limitations on what acts constitute a crime, under a more broadly worded statutory criminal law, are broadened to include additional acts, even when there is no notice to the defendant that the court might undo the common law limitations, so long as the statutory criminal law was made prior to the acts, and so long as the expansion to the newly included acts is expected or defensible in reference to the statutory law. The court wrote,
In the context of common law doctrines... Strict application of ex post facto principles... would unduly impair the incremental and reasoned development of precedent that is the foundation of the common law system." The decision did not affect the requirement of fair warning placed on statutes passed by legislatures - "The Constitution's Ex Post Facto Clause... 'is a limitation upon the powers of the Legislature, and does not of its own force apply to the Judicial Branch of government'... a judicial alteration of a common law doctrine of criminal law [only] violates the principal of fair warning... where it is 'unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which had been expressed prior to the conduct in issue.
Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347 (1964), was a case in which the US Supreme Court held that due process prohibits retroactive application of any judicial construction of a criminal statute that is unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law that has been expressed prior to the conduct in issue. The holding is based on the Fourteenth Amendment prohibition by the Due Process Clause of ex post facto laws.
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In the United States, each state and territory sets the age of consent either by statute or the common law applies, and there are several federal statutes related to protecting minors from sexual predators. Depending on the jurisdiction, the legal age of consent is between 16 and 18. In some places, civil and criminal laws within the same state conflict with each other.
Child sexual abuse laws in the United States have been enacted as part of the nation's child protection policies.
Seling v. Young, 531 U.S. 250 (2001), was a United States Supreme Court case decided in 2001. The case concerned a challenge to a civil commitment statute for sexual predators in Washington state. The petitioner tried to differentiate this case from previous ones before the Supreme Court which upheld civil commitment statutes. The Court rejected the challenge to the law over the objection of a single Justice.
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