Re: copyright, crime, Canada

On Tue, 29 Apr 1997, Timothy Arnold-Moore <tja[_at_]mds.rmit.edu.au> wrote:
>
> This sounds like a useful work-around for the US but Canada and most
> of the rest of the world have no problem with retrospective legislation
> (unless it retrospectively makes something a crime that was not before).

The U.S. is not a stranger to retroactive legislation (most notably in the tax code), but this particular type of legislation, which changes the punishment after the fact of the trial, would probably be deemed to be an ex post facto criminal law.

Maybe someone whose knowledge of such things is more recent than mine can help -- if legislation changes the statutory penalty for a crime, can that legislation be retroactively applied to levy the new penalty against crimes committed before its enactment? I'm pretty sure (I put my confidence at about 90%) it cannot.

Secondly, if a change to the Sentencing Guidelines is made, can the new Guideline be retroactively applied to levy penalties under the new Guideline against crimes committed prior to the change? I'm fairly sure (~60%) that it can, provided the Guideline is within the statutory limits.

--
Terry Carroll       | "The invention provides means for continuously
Santa Clara, CA     | trapping sparrows and supplying a cat and 
carroll[_at_]tjc.com     | neighborhood cats with a supply of sparrows."
Modell delenda est  |                - U.S. Patent no. 4,150,505