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Case 1:20-cr-00330-AJN Document 144 Filed 02/04/21 Page 15 of 25
had expressly prescribed that the 2003 Amendment would not be retroactive; Weingarten
considered only whether there was an express prescription that the 2003 Amendment would be
retroactive, concluding that the defendant’s counsel could have made “colorable” arguments that
there was no such prescription. Jd. at 58.°
Congressional intent here could not be clearer. The House bill would have made the
2003 Amendment retroactive, the Senate bill did not, and the conference consciously rejected the
retroactivity provision. It is unnecessary to proceed to the second Landgraf step, and Counts
One through Four are time-barred.
B. Step Two: Application of the 2003 Amendment to Ms. Maxwell’s alleged
offenses would have impermissible effects.
If the Court were to proceed to the second Landgraf step—whether application of the
2003 Amendment here would have an impermissible retroactive effect—that step also counsels
against retroactivity.
Any analysis of the retroactivity of a criminal statute of limitations under the second step
of Landgraf must be undertaken in conjunction with the principle that unlike civil statutes of
limitation, “criminal limitations statutes are ‘to be liberally interpreted in favor of repose.’”
Toussie, 397 U.S. at 115 (quoting Scharton, 285 U.S. at 522). As one court recognized in
declining to extend a criminal statute of limitations to pre-enactment conduct, if Landgraf and
Toussie “are read in conjunction,” courts “must interpret the statute of limitations in a manner
favoring repose for Defendant.” United States v. Gentile, 235 F. Supp. 3d 649, 655 (D.N.J.
2017).
3 Nor was this clear evidence of congressional intent raised or considered in United States v. Pierre-Louis, 2018 WL
4043140 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 9, 2018), which the government cites in support of its contention that the 2003
Amendment may be applied retroactively. Gov. Mem. at 6.
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| Filename | DOJ-OGR-00002663.jpg |
| File Size | 656.1 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 94.7% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 1,970 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-03 16:25:56.814973 |