442
Opinion of the Court
to second-degree murder and had been sentenced to prison for 15 years. At the time of Weaver's plea, Florida law provided credits contingent on the good conduct of the prisoner of 5 days per month for the first two years of his sentence, 10 days per month for the third and fourth years, and 15 days per month thereafter. The law therefore provided him with an opportunity to be released after serving less than nine years of his sentence. In 1978 the Florida Legislature enacted a new formula for computing gain-time; instead of 5, 10, and 15 days per month, it authorized only 3, 6, and 9 days. The new statute did not withdraw any credits already awarded to Weaver, but by curtailing the availability of future credits it effectively postponed the date when he would become eligible for early release. Because the statute made the punishment for crimes committed before its enactment "more onerous," we unanimously concluded that it ran "afoul of the prohibition against ex post facto laws." 450 U. S., at 36.
According to petitioner, although this case involves overcrowding credits, it is essentially like Weaver because the issuance of these credits was dependent on an inmate's good conduct. Respondents, on the other hand, submit that Weaver is not controlling because it was the overcrowded condition of the prison system, rather than the character of the prisoner's conduct, that gave rise to the award. In our view, both of these submissions place undue emphasis on the legislature's subjective intent in granting the credits rather than on the consequences of their revocation.
In arriving at our holding in Weaver, we relied not on the subjective motivation of the legislature in enacting the gain-time credits, but rather on whether objectively the new statute "lengthen[ed] the period that someone in petitioner's position must spend in prison." Id., at 33. Similarly, in this case, the fact that the generous gain-time provisions in Florida's 1983 statute were motivated more by the interest in avoiding overcrowding than by a desire to reward good behavior is not relevant to the essential inquiry demanded by
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