Ex Post Facto Limitations on Legislative Power

This Note explores the rationale underlying the prohibition of ex post facto laws and formulates an analytic framework for a more principled application .of the prohibition. This analytic framework is then used, first, to critique the present strict application of the prohibition to changes in criminal “punishments” and determine whether the prohibition should be applied to sanctions imposed outside the criminal context, and, second, to determine the degree to which the prohibition should be applied to procedural changes.