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Case 1:20-cr-00330-AJN Document 144 Filed 02/04/21 Page 17 of 25
by statutes whose retroactive application, while not the equivalent of criminal ex post facto,
nevertheless would run afoul of ‘familiar considerations of fair notice, reasonable reliance, and
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settled expectations.’”) Thus, in the criminal context, the second step of Landgraf should be read
as providing protections broader than simply violations of the Ex Post Facto Clause, and as
prohibiting retroactive application of a criminal statute of limitations—and the resulting
expansion of an individual’s exposure to criminal liability for completed conduct—even where
the charge is not time-barred at the time of the amendment.
Statutes of limitations “applicable to criminal prosecutions are designed principally to
protect individuals from having to defend themselves against charges supported by facts that are
remote in time.” United States v. Rivera-Ventura, 72 F.3d 277, 281 (2d Cir. 1995). That
concern is heightened here, where the government seeks to rely on the retroactive extension of a
criminal statute of limitations to prosecute a case based on conduct more than two decades old,
with little, if any, evidence other than witness testimony. See Toussie, 397 U.S. at 115
(observing that statute of limitations “may also have the salutary effect of encouraging law
enforcement officials promptly to investigate suspected criminal activity”). Since the time of the
alleged conduct, memories have become faded or corrupted, documents have been lost or
destroyed, and witnesses have died, all to the extreme prejudice of Ms. Maxwell.” Retroactively
applying the 2003 Amendment here not only would fly in the face of congressional intent; it
would violate all notions of fundamental fairness.°
> See Motion to Dismiss Counts One through Six of the Superseding Indictment for Pre-Indictment Delay.
° In Weingarten, the court stated that if the defendant’s counsel had successfully persuaded the trial court that the
2003 Amendment could not retroactively extend the statute of limitations for live charges, the trial court’s holding
would have been in direct conflict with the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in United States v. Leo Sure Chief, 438 F.3d 920
(9th Cir. 2006). But in Leo Sure Chief, the alleged victim had not yet reached age 25 as of the time of the
indictment, and thus the charges would not have been time-barred under either version of § 3283. Thus, the court in
Leo Sure Chief did not perform a Landgraf analysis.
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| Filename | DOJ-OGR-00002665.jpg |
| File Size | 758.5 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 94.7% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 2,530 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-03 16:25:59.129580 |