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Extracted Text (OCR)
Case 22-1426, Document 59, 02/28/2023, 3475902, Page/1 of 113
Although the District Court was correct to recognize that Congress deleted
the retroactivity provision purposefully, it failed to understand the reason. The
District Court relied on a floor statement by Senator Leahy, in which the Senator
offered his own reasons for opposing the retroactivity clause:
I am pleased that the conference agreed to drop language from the
original House-passed bill that would have extended the limitations
period retroactively. That language, which would have revived the
government’s authority to prosecute crimes that were previously time-
barred, is of doubtful constitutionality.
149 Cong. Rec. $5147. Based on this, the District Court theorized that Congress
wanted only to ensure that the extended statute of limitations would not
unconstitutionally revive time-barred claims. See Stogner v. California, 539 U.S.
607, 610 (2003).
But Stogner is an unilluminating lens through which to analyze Sen. Leahy’s
remark, as that case was not decided until after the PROTECT Act was passed.
And though Stogner established, for Ex Post Facto Clause purposes, a clear
division between statutes that revive time-barred prosecutions and those that
merely extend the time to bring prosecutions not time-barred, this dichotomy
would not have been apparent to Congress before Stogner. Indeed, the Stogner
majority felt it necessary to clarify that its holding did “not prevent the State from
extending time limits...for prosecutions not yet time barred,” 539 U.S. at 632,
while the dissent contended that this dichotomy was untenable, see id. at 650
56
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Extracted Information
Dates
Document Details
| Filename | DOJ-OGR-00021118.jpg |
| File Size | 695.9 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 94.9% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 1,661 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-03 20:07:24.619572 |