Cite as: 514 U. S. 499 (1995)
Stevens, J., dissenting
that retroactively increased the length of time that a prisoner must remain imprisoned for past offenses, see, e. g., Miller v. Florida, 482 U. S. 423 (1987) (unanimous opinion); Weaver v. Graham, 450 U. S. 24 (1981) (without dissent).
Our ex post facto jurisprudence concerning increased punishment has established three important propositions. First, the Court has squarely held that an individual prisoner need not prove that the retroactive application of a law authorizing an increased punishment for a past offense has actually affected the sentence that that prisoner must serve. In Lindsey v. Washington, 301 U. S. 397 (1937), for example, petitioners were sentenced under a law that required a sentence of 15 years; the law in effect at the time of the offense gave the judge discretion to impose a lesser sentence. The State contended that petitioners had failed to show that there was an ex post facto violation because petitioners might have received a 15-year sentence even under the old law. We unanimously rejected the State's contention:
"[T]he ex post facto clause looks to the standard of punishment prescribed by a statute, rather than to the sentence actually imposed. . . .
"Removal of the possibility of a sentence of less than fifteen years, at the end of which petitioners would be freed from further confinement and the tutelage of a parole revocable at will, operates to their detriment in the sense that the standard of punishment adopted by the new statute is more onerous than that of the old." Id., at 401.
Only a few years ago, in Miller v. Florida, 482 U. S. 423 (1987), we unanimously reaffirmed the holding in Lindsey, noting that "Lindsey establishes 'that one is not barred from challenging a change in the penal code on ex post facto grounds simply because the sentence he received under the new law was not more onerous than that which he might have received under the old.' " 482 U. S., at 432 (citation
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