Cite as: 532 U. S. 451 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
precisely the same [impermissible] effect by judicial construction of the statute"). This language, however, was dicta. Our decision in Bouie was rooted firmly in well established notions of due process. See supra, at 457-458. Its rationale rested on core due process concepts of notice, foreseeability, and, in particular, the right to fair warning as those concepts bear on the constitutionality of attaching criminal penalties to what previously had been innocent conduct. See, e. g., 378 U. S., at 351, 352, 354-355. And we couched its holding squarely in terms of that established due process right, and not in terms of the ex post facto-related dicta to which petitioner points. Id., at 355 (concluding that "the South Carolina Code did not give [the petitioners] fair warning, at the time of their conduct . . . , that the act for which they now stand convicted was rendered criminal by the statute"). Contrary to petitioner's suggestion, nowhere in the opinion did we go so far as to incorporate jot-for-jot the specific categories of Calder into due process limitations on the retroactive application of judicial decisions.
Nor have any of our subsequent decisions addressing Bouie-type claims interpreted Bouie as extending so far. Those decisions instead have uniformly viewed Bouie as restricted to its traditional due process roots. In doing so, they have applied Bouie's check on retroactive judicial decisionmaking not by reference to the ex post facto categories set out in Calder, but, rather, in accordance with the more basic and general principle of fair warning that Bouie so clearly articulated. See, e. g., United States v. Lanier, 520 U. S. 259, 266 (1997) ("[D]ue process bars courts from applying a novel construction of a criminal statute to conduct that neither the statute nor any prior judicial decision has fairly disclosed to be within its scope"); Marks v. United States, 430 U. S., at 191-192 (Due process protects against judicial infringement of the "right to fair warning" that certain conduct will give rise to criminal penalties); Rose v. Locke, 423 U. S. 48, 53 (1975) (per curiam) (upholding defendant's con-
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