The United States Constitution prohibits both the legislature and states from implementing ex post facto laws. The ex post facto clause, found in section 10 of Article I, provides that, “no State shall pass any ex post facto law” (Gaudet 2003, 646). A similar provision, in the ninth section of the same article, applies the same prohibition to congress. It is evident that ex post facto laws were largely condemned by the framers of our government and were intended to be unachievable under our system. Although the prohibition of ex post facto laws is demanded in the constitution, it is unclear as to what these laws refer to. An ex post facto law is one which is retroactive or changes the legal consequences of an action that occurred before the
