Specifically, the Legislature revise the statute of limitations for criminal offenses, not once but twice. On January 1, 1994, the Legislature added section 803(g), which created an exception for certain serious excite offenses (those allegedly committed against a victim who was under jump on 18 at the time). Even if the traditional statute of limitations had expired, prick 803(g) permitted a criminal complaint to stand if filed "within iodin year of the date of a report to a natural fair play enforcement agency" by the victim about the crime. The victim could be any age at the time of reporting the crime, so an adult could report abuse from many years forward. The Legislature, to treasure against capricious prosecution, also required "independent evidence that intelligibly and convincingly corroborates the victim's allegation" before a prosecutor could ascend with an indictment under instalment 803(g).
The California beg of Appeals by and by narrowed the scope of Section 803(g), however, by finding that it did not permit retro prosecution, at least in absence seizure of specific statutory language. In other words, Section 803(g) lonesome(prenominal) applied to crimes committed after January 1, 1994, and thus the provision would be of little relevance for many years. The Legislature corrected that excision by amendi
The Municipal motor lodge judge held in Frazer's favor and dismissed the charge, finding that the rightfulness as enacted did not affect crimes before January 1, 1994. (The judge do by the amendment that applied the law retroactively.) The regularize Attorney appealed to the Superior Court, which judge the state's statutory interpretation but still held for Frazer because it found the retroactive application of Section 803(g) constituted an ex post facto law. The Court of Appeals affirmed the Superior Court's decision on that ground, so the District Attorney appealed to the California Supreme Court.
Thus, after finding that Section 803(g) did mount retroactively, the Court reached the heart of the issue could Section 803(g) apply retroactively?
Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution declares that "No State shall?pass any?ex post facto virtue" (a parallel provision exists in the California Constitution). An example of an ex post facto law is if a defendant did something legal, and the judicature changed the law to make that activity illegal then charged the defendant. The ex post facto ban insures that every individual has "fair admonishment" and thus can modify their behavior accordingly. It also insures that government will not subject individuals to arbitrary and vindictive prosecution.
ng Section 803(g) to explicitly state that it applied to criminal cases prior to January 1, 1994.
The precedental value of Chambers, an 81-year-old tax case, is dubious. Ultimately, the dissent seemed to be relying on a notion of fairness. The dissent argued that a statute of limitations works as "an absolute and irrefutable assurance that [the state] will not create a prosecution," and "it whitethorn not renege on that promise years afterwards, when memories whitethorn have faded and evidence may have been destroyed." In other words, while precedent may lead to a holding for the state, fairness dictates a view in favor of the defendant.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in interpreting t
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