Cite as: 511 U. S. 244 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
sures that individuals have "fair warning" about the effect of criminal statutes, but also "restricts governmental power by restraining arbitrary and potentially vindictive legislation." Id., at 28-29 (citations omitted).20
The Constitution's restrictions, of course, are of limited scope. Absent a violation of one of those specific provisions, the potential unfairness of retroactive civil legislation is not a sufficient reason for a court to fail to give a statute its intended scope.21 Retroactivity provisions often serve en-20 See Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 513-514 (1989) ("Legislatures are primarily policymaking bodies that promulgate rules to govern future conduct. The constitutional prohibitions against the enactment of ex post facto laws and bills of attainder reflect a valid concern about the use of the political process to punish or characterize past conduct of private citizens. It is the judicial system, rather than the legislative process, that is best equipped to identify past wrongdoers and to fashion remedies that will create the conditions that presumably would have existed had no wrong been committed") (Stevens, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); James v. United States, 366 U. S. 213, 247, n. 3 (1961) (retroactive punitive measures may reflect "a purpose not to prevent dangerous conduct generally but to impose by legislation a penalty against specific persons or classes of persons").
James Madison argued that retroactive legislation also offered special opportunities for the powerful to obtain special and improper legislative benefits. According to Madison, "[b]ills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts" were "contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation," in part because such measures invited the "influential" to "speculat[e] on public measures," to the detriment of the "more industrious and less informed part of the community." The Federalist No. 44, p. 301 (J. Cooke ed. 1961). See Hochman, The Supreme Court and the Constitutionality of Retroactive Legislation, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 692, 693 (1960) (a retroactive statute "may be passed with an exact knowledge of who will benefit from it").
21 In some cases, however, the interest in avoiding the adjudication of constitutional questions will counsel against a retroactive application. For if a challenged statute is to be given retroactive effect, the regulatory interest that supports prospective application will not necessarily also sustain its application to past events. See Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation v. R. A. Gray & Co., 467 U. S. 717, 730 (1984); Usery v. Turner
267
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