Well that holds up for obvious reasons. Lets say that you pass a law that says that you have the right to use lethal force on people who violate your property, even if they are fleeing or incapacitated.
Now let us say that someone shoots a teenager who wandered onto his property in the back while he was running away from the crazy man with the gun. The Lawyer uses this law as a defense.
The judges rule it unconstitutional, and that because how the law was written was unconstitutional, this clearly does not constitute a defense.
Your hypothetical gets difficult to believe here. On what grounds would such a law be unconstitutional? The state has the power to define crimes and defenses, and if the state says that it is a defense to homicide that the victim was a trespasser on the defendant's property, I don't see what the
constitutional objection would be to such a (terrible terrible) law.
That means he did not have the right to do what he did, and is thus obviously a criminal for violating existing statute.
I don't think that's right - one central principle of criminal law is the requirement of
notice - Due Process requires that a person have some notice - fair warning that his behavior was criminal - in order to be convicted. If the law on the books says that that's a defense, it would violate due process to then remove such a defense ex post, especially as against a private actor in a criminal case.
SCOTUS more or less said that similar to the way you cannot be convicted of violating an unconstitutional law, you cannot be protected by one.
Not at all.
Even accepting your first 2.5 paragraphs as correct (which I don't), this is not what the SCOTUS did in
Rogers - neither the Tennessee Supreme Court nor the SCOTUS struck down the year and a day rule as unconstitutional. The Tennessee Supreme Court struck down the rule as anachronistic and essentially lousy law, using their law-making power, not the power of judicial review. They were making common law, like supreme courts sometimes do. The only question for the SCOTUS was whether or not
retroactive application of the judicial abrogation was constitutional,
not whether the year and a day rule itself was constitutional (it is).
The SCOTUS's decision in
Stevens strongly implied, if it didn't outright state, that the Tennessee legislature could not have applied such a change in law ex post. The Court interpreted the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution to apply only to statutes passed by state legislatures. Judicial lawmaking was similarly restricted, but not by the Ex Post Facto clause, but by the Due Process Clause. But that restriction was not as broad as the other - it only limited judicial lawmaking that was "unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which had been expressed prior to the conduct in issue."
In other words, if a state legislature changed the law, it could not be applied retroactively, because it would violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. But if a state court changed the law, it could be applied retroactively unless it was an "unexpected and indefensible" change, because that is the limitation imposed by the Due Process Clause. The Court held it wasn't unexpected and indefensible, so retroactive application was fine.
But understand: at neither of the supreme courts was the constitutionality of the year and a day rule at issue (which means your hypo is inapplicable) - it was the retroactive abrogation whose constitutionality was tested.
You could use Mr. Jackson's death to launch a criminal case and drag it up to the state supreme court that way, but for obvious reasons I'm hoping that never ever happens.
I'm sorry; the reasons are not obvious to me. Unless you mean that you hope Mr. Jackson doesn't die of AIDS, or that you hope Mr. Jackson outlives his father, in which case, yes, I agree.
Changing of statute of limitations has been done in the past and upheld...
If the s/l is expired, it is unconstitutional.
Stogner v. California, U.S. 2003.
If the s/l is unexpired, you are right, it has been upheld, but I don't believe it's ever gone to the SCOTUS.
This ought to be no different.
But there's a big difference.
If I commit a crime today, and the s/l is 5 years, and 4 years from now the s/l is extended to 10 years, and 2 years later I am prosecuted for my crime,
I am being prosecuted for something that was a crime when I did it.
If I commit a homicidal act today (in a state with the year and a day rule), and a year and two days from today, the victim dies, and then the law is changed abolishing the year and a day rule, and I am prosecuted for murder,
I am being prosecuted for murder for an act that was not murder when I did it.
That's the difference.
Apparently Scrut thinks this thread has room for that kind of humor.