[ExI] ex post fucto

Adrian Tymes atymes at gmail.com
Mon Oct 6 20:44:49 UTC 2014


On Oct 6, 2014 9:53 AM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> In the US legal system (and probably all the others that matter) if the
penalty for a crime increases after the crime has been committed, the perp
is penalized under the previous system, when the crime was actually
committed.  This legal concept is known by the Latin phrase ex post facto,
after the fact.
>
> What if some technology is invented which causes a crime to be
detectable, long after it is committed, such that the probability of being
caught rises dramatically?

The same thing that happens if evidence turns up for non-technological
reasons.  There is a statute of limitations on most crimes, and none on
others, to deal with this type of situation.

The law does not excuse cases just because the probability of being caught
seemed low at the time.
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