Cite as: 529 U. S. 513 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
wick's bill of attainder, which permitted the House of Commons to convict him with less evidence than was otherwise required, Texas' retrospective application of the amendment to Article 38.07 permitted petitioner to be convicted with less than the previously required quantum of evidence. It is true, of course, as the Texas Court of Appeals observed, that "[t]he statute as amended does not increase the punishment nor change the elements of the offense that the State must prove." 963 S. W. 2d, at 836. But that observation simply demonstrates that the amendment does not fit within Calder's first and third categories. Likewise, the dissent's remark that "Article 38.07 does not establish an element of the offense," post, at 559, only reveals that the law does not come within Calder's first category. The fact that the amendment authorizes a conviction on less evidence than previously required, however, brings it squarely within the fourth category.
V
The fourth category, so understood, resonates harmoniously with one of the principal interests that the Ex Post Facto Clause was designed to serve, fundamental justice.21
see also post, at 561, n. 6 (dissenting opinion). The trouble with that argument is that the same was true in Fenwick's case. The relevant statute there required the "Testimony of Two lawfull Witnesses either both of them to the same Overtact or one of them to one and another of them to another Overtact of the same Treason." See n. 15, supra (emphasis added).
21 The Clause is, of course, also aimed at other concerns, "namely, that legislative enactments give fair warning of their effect and permit individuals to rely on their meaning until explicitly changed," Miller v. Florida, 482 U. S. 423, 430 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted), and at reinforcing the separation of powers, see Weaver v. Graham, 450 U. S. 24, 29, n. 10 (1981). But those are not its only aims, and the absence of a reliance interest is not an argument in favor of abandoning the category itself. If it were, the same conclusion would follow for Calder's third category (increases in punishment), as there are few, if any, reliance interests in planning future criminal activities based on the expectation of less severe repercussions.
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