No, because we aren't discussing habeas corpus. My apologies. I meant ex post facto, but was thinking habeas corpus due to another discussion I'm having on that subject.
As for the rest this is reminding me of our discussion of what constituted an obiter dicta.
In some ways, it may be. But it remains that my interpretation of ex post facto is perfectly consistent with the definition of that term given by Marshall as well as the history behind it in England.
As I recall you clung to your rather unique interpretation of that, too.
As did you.
Here is some source material on ex post facto.
Criminal Law, 2 Ed., Wayne R. LaFave and Austin W. Scott, Jr., West Publishing, 1986
Although some earlier cases took the view that any change in the kind or manner of punishment is ex post facto as to prior offenses, today it is generally accepted that such a change is permissible if it does not increase the punishment, as with a change in the procedures for arriving at or carrying out a sentence of death. It is not always easy, however, to tell whether the new punishment is greater than or the same as or less than the old. A statute delaying execution for three months has been held not be to ex post facto, but a new law providing for solitary confinement before execution is not valid as to past capital crimes.
Black's Law Dictionary, 6 Ed.
An "ex post facto" law" is defined as a law which provides for the infliction of punishment upon a person for an act done which, when it was committed, was innocent; a law which aggravates a crime or makes it greater than when it was committed; a law that changes the punishment or inflicts a greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime when it was committed; a law that changes the rules of evidence and receives less or different testimony than was required at the time of the commission of the offense in order to convict the offender; a law which, assuming to regulate civil rights and remedies only, in effect imposes a penalty or the deprivation of a right which, when done, was lawful; a law which deprives persons accused of crime of some lawful protection to which they have become entitled, such as the protection of a former conviction or acquittal, or of the proclamation of amnesty; every law which, in relation to the offense or its consequences, alters the situation of a person to his disadvantage. Wilensky v. Fields, Fla., 267 So.2d 1, 5.
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/432/282.html U.S. Supreme Court
DOBBERT v. FLORIDA
432 U.S. 282 (1977)
Argued March 28, 1977
Decided June 17, 1977
MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
Article I, 10, of the United States Constitution prohibits a State from passing any "ex post facto Law." Our cases have not attempted to precisely delimit the scope of this Latin phrase, but have instead given it substance by an accretion of case law. In Beazell v. Ohio, 269 U.S. 167, 169-170 (1925), Mr. Justice Stone summarized for the Court the characteristics of an ex post facto law:
"It is settled, by decisions of this Court so well known that their citation may be dispensed with, that any statute which punishes as a crime an act previously committed, which was innocent when done; which makes more burdensome the punishment for a crime, after its commission, or which deprives one charged with crime of any defense available according to law at the time when the act was committed, is prohibited as ex post facto." [432 U.S. 282, 293]