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To: Bob J; Cyropaedia; Congressman Billybob
From our resident FR Constitutional attorney;
“Ex post facto applies in only one direction. ... Congress does have the power to “undeclare” an act as a crime. ...”

Well, now you've changed your argument. Remember, this conversation started as follows:

BobJ: ..."demanding Hunter and Poe serve up legislation to get R&C out of prison NOW"

Cyropaedia: “Congress is basically forbidden from applying changes in criminal law retroactively...”

BobJ: "Several lawyers have been on these threads who would disagree. Are you a lawyer? I always wonder when someone offers a legal opinion starting with the word “basically”."

Previously, you were asserting that new legislation could be written (ex post facto) to release Ramos and Compean from prison. Now, per input from the unnamed "resident FR Constitutional attorney" (who I assume is Congressman Billybob so I have included him on the ping), you suggest that R&C might be freed by "undeclaring" an act as a crime.

I ask you, exactly which crime would you have Congress "undeclare"? 18 U.S.C. §924(c)(1)(A)(iii)]? All of 924(c)? Are you now suggesting that the solution you were previously suggesting, 100 posts ago, was for Congress to unwrite the law, thereby relieving tens of thousands of criminals of sentences handed down under this law? Or, are you suggesting that the resident FR Constitutional attorney believes that a law could be undeclared and applied only to the case of Ramos and Compean, but leaving all other criminals sentences unchanged? Somehow, I don't think he is going to agree with that one.

(And let's not forget that Ramos and Compean have appealed the application of 924(c) altogether--claiming it is a sentencing guideline, not a crime in and of itself.)

You don’t know if you’re right, you don’t even check to see if you’re right, you just don’t want it to be so you start flapping your gums and spouting anything that comes into your head. Which pretty much sums up the way you have been arguing this case for the last year.

Quit with the insults, already. Talk the issues or take a hike.

So I just proved everything I’ve been saying. For two years you have had at your disposal the simplest, quickest option for getting Ramos and Compean out of jail and you haven’t even checked it out much less considered it.

You've proven nothing, thus far.

221 posted on 12/29/2007 12:02:39 PM PST by calcowgirl ("Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink." P. J. O'Rourke)
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To: Bob J
Correction to italics in last part of post (to clarify that it was YOU spewing the insults):

You don’t know if you’re right, you don’t even check to see if you’re right, you just don’t want it to be so you start flapping your gums and spouting anything that comes into your head. Which pretty much sums up the way you have been arguing this case for the last year.

Quit with the insults, already. Talk the issues or take a hike.

So I just proved everything I’ve been saying. For two years you have had at your disposal the simplest, quickest option for getting Ramos and Compean out of jail and you haven’t even checked it out much less considered it.

You've proven nothing, thus far.


222 posted on 12/29/2007 12:09:17 PM PST by calcowgirl ("Liberalism is just Communism sold by the drink." P. J. O'Rourke)
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To: calcowgirl; Bob J
I ask you, exactly which crime would you have Congress "undeclare"? 18 U.S.C. §924(c)(1)(A)(iii)]? All of 924(c)? Are you now suggesting that the solution you were previously suggesting, 100 posts ago, was for Congress to unwrite the law, thereby relieving tens of thousands of criminals of sentences handed down under this law? Or, are you suggesting that the resident FR Constitutional attorney believes that a law could be undeclared and applied only to the case of Ramos and Compean, but leaving all other criminals sentences unchanged? Somehow, I don't think he is going to agree with that one.

Great point CCG. Bob doesn't understand the ramifications of what he's advocating.

The courts have declared that specific measures could be applied retroactively but only because they deemed them to be "regulatory" and not "punitive". We are talking about something that is clearly a bona fide punitive measure.

225 posted on 12/29/2007 12:49:02 PM PST by Cyropaedia ("Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principal of evil...".)
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