Lynce v. Mathis, 519 U.S. 433, 7 (1997)

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Cite as: 519 U. S. 433 (1997)

Opinion of the Court

inmates, including those convicted of attempted murder.10

As a result of that action, credits for 2,789 inmates who were still in custody were canceled, and rearrest warrants were issued for 164 offenders who had been released.11 Petitioner was in the latter class.

Respondents contend that the cancellation of petitioner's provisional credits did not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause for two reasons: (1) Because the credits had been issued as part of administrative procedures designed to alleviate overcrowding, they were not an integral part of petitioner's punishment; and (2) in petitioner's case, the specific overcrowding credits had been awarded pursuant to statutes enacted after the date of his offense rather than pursuant to the 1983 statute. We consider the arguments separately.

III

The presumption against the retroactive application of new laws is an essential thread in the mantle of protection that the law affords the individual citizen. That presumption "is deeply rooted in our jurisprudence, and embodies a legal doctrine centuries older than our Republic." Land-graf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244, 265 (1994). This doctrine finds expression in several provisions of our Consti-10 See Fla. Op. Atty. Gen. 92-96 (1992), reprinted in Lodging, p. 53; Griffin v. Singletary, 638 So. 2d, at 501. In 1989 the Florida Legislature amended the provisional credits statute to render those convicted of certain murder offenses, including attempted murder, ineligible for provisional credits. Fla. Stat. § 944.277 (1989). The Florida Department of Corrections interpreted the 1989 amendments, and subsequent amendments enacted in 1990 and 1991 which contained the same exclusion, to apply prospectively. The 1992 amendment at issue in this case was originally interpreted by the department of corrections to apply only prospectively, but the subsequent 1992 opinion by the attorney general concluded that the statute applied retroactively.

11 Department of Corrections Letter of July 9, 1996, App. to Brief for Florida Public Defender Association, Inc., as Amicus Curiae. The petitioner's administrative gain-time credits were also canceled, but he does not challenge that action.

439

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