Melville Fuller

“ And it is insisted that section 72 of the Penal Code, with the force and effect given it by section 2143 of the consolidation act, under the decisions of the New York court of appeals, is ex post facto, and therefore void, in that thereby the maximum punishment by imprisonment of the crime of bribery committed before as well as after the consolidation act went into effect was changed from two to ten years. ”

“ A general law for the punishment of offenses, which should endeavor to reach by its retroactive operation acts before committed, as well as to prescribe a rule of conduct for the citizen in future, would be void so far as it was retrospective ”

“ Accepting the conclusions of the highest court of the state of New York as to the operation of the acts in question in substituting, under section 72, a longer term of imprisonment for that which had theretofore existed, it is clear that section 72 governed future cases only ”