456
Opinion of the Court
not offend this principle. 992 S. W. 2d, at 402. We granted certiorari, 529 U. S. 1129 (2000), and we now affirm.
II
Although petitioner's claim is one of due process, the Constitution's Ex Post Facto Clause figures prominently in his argument. The Clause provides simply that "[n]o State shall . . . pass any . . . ex post facto Law." Art. I, § 10, cl. 1. The most well-known and oft-repeated explanation of the scope of the Clause's protection was given by Justice Chase, who long ago identified, in dictum, four types of laws to which the Clause extends:
"1st. Every law that makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2d. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed. 3d. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offense, in order to convict the offender." Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 390 (1798) (seriatim opinion of Chase, J.) (emphasis deleted).
Accord, Carmell v. Texas, 529 U. S. 513, 521-525 (2000); Collins v. Youngblood, 497 U. S. 37, 41-42, 46 (1990). As the text of the Clause makes clear, it "is a limitation upon the powers of the Legislature, and does not of its own force apply to the Judicial Branch of government." Marks v. United States, 430 U. S. 188, 191 (1977) (citation omitted).
We have observed, however, that limitations on ex post facto judicial decisionmaking are inherent in the notion of due process. In Bouie v. City of Columbia, we considered the South Carolina Supreme Court's retroactive application
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