NO QUARTER FOR CORRUPTION (Focussing on The Fed./FRBS)

[bartermania]

""President Andrew Johnson saw the Reconstruction Act as "absolute despotism," a "bill of attainder against 9,000,000 people." In his veto message, he stated that "such a power ha[d] not been wielded by any Monarch in England for more than five hundred years." Sounding for all the world like Roger Pilon, Johnson asked, "Have we the power to establish and carry into execution a measure like this?" and answered, "Certainly not, if we derive our authority from the Constitution and if we are bound by the limitations which it imposes."

The rump Republican Congress overrode Johnson's veto and enacted statutes that shrank both the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction and the Court itself – just in case the judicial branch got any funny ideas of its own about constitutionalism. Jackboot on its neck, the South ratified, but not before New Jersey and Ohio, aghast at Republican tyranny, rescinded their previous ratifications of the mendment. Even with the fictional consent of the Southern states, the republicans needed New Jersey and Ohio to put the amendment over the top. No matter; by joint resolution, Congress declared the amendment valid. Thus it – you'll excuse the phrasing-- "passed into law." ""

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Definitions of Bill of attainder on the Web:

legislative act declaring that a person is guilty of a crime and setting punishment without the benefit of a formal trial. The Constitution forbids the federal government (Article I, Section 9, clause 3) and the state governments (Article I, Section 10, clause 1) from passing bills of attainder.
www.historycentral.com/Civics/B.html

a legislative act finding a person guilty of treason or felony without a trial; "bills of attainder are prohibited by the Constitution of the United States"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

A bill of attainder (or act of attainder) was an act of legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime, and punishing them, without benefit of a trial. The United States Constitution in Article 1 Section 9 explicitly forbids Congress to pass any bills of attainder, while they were abolished in the United Kingdom in 1870.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder

Link: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&defl=en&q=define:Bill+of+attainder&sa=X&o....
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Bill of Attainder

Definition: A legislative act that singles out an individual or group for punishment without a trial.

The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 provides that: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed."

"The Bill of Attainder Clause was intended not as a narrow, technical (and therefore soon to be outmoded) prohibition, but rather as an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function or more simply - trial by legislature." U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437, 440 (1965).

"These clauses of the Constitution are not of the broad, general nature of the Due Process Clause, but refer to rather precise legal terms which had a meaning under English law at the time the Constitution was adopted. A bill of attainder was a legislative act that singled out one or more persons and imposed punishment on them, without benefit of trial. Such actions were regarded as odious by the framers of the Constitution because it was the traditional role of a court, judging an individual case, to impose punishment." William H. Rehnquist, The Supreme Court, page 166.

"Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation. ... The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less-informed part of the community." James Madison, Federalist Number 44, 1788.

Supreme Court cases construing the Bill of Attainder clause include:

Ex Parte Garland, 4 Wallace 333 (1866).
Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wallace 277 (1866).
U.S. v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437 (1965).
Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S.425 (1977).
Selective Service Administration v. Minnesota PIRG, 468 U.S. 841 (1984).

Link: http://www.techlawjournal.com/glossary/legal/attainder.htm
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EX POST FACTO CLAUSE - A misnomer in that actually two Constitutional clauses are involved. The U.S. Constitution's Article 1 Section 9, C.3 states: 'No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed,' and Section 10 says: 'No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law. . . .'

The 'words and the intent' of the Ex Post Facto Clause encompass '[e]very law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed.' Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. (1 Dall.) 386, 390 (1798) (opinion of Chase, J.).

An ex post facto law is a law passed after the occurrence of an event or action which retrospectively changes the legal consequences of the event or action.

Link: http://www.lectlaw.com/def/e086.htm
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Ex post facto law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An ex post facto law (from the Latin for "from something done afterward") or retroactive law, is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of acts committed or the legal status of facts and relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law. In reference to criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; or to aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was at the time it was committed; or to change or increase the punishment prescribed for a crime, such as by adding new penalties or extending terms; or to alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime more likely than it would have been at the time of the action for which a defendant is prosecuted. Conversely, an ex post facto law may decriminalize certain acts or alleviate possible punishments (for example by replacing the death sentence with life-long imprisonment) retroactively.

A hypothetical example: someone committed a high-profile, brutal murder, but the public thinks the existing laws will not punish the murderer severely enough; so the legislature enacts laws that will more severely punish those who have committed the crime of murder ensuring that this specific murderer will get a prison sentence longer than that prescribed at the time he committed the crime.

A law may have an ex post facto effect without being technically ex post facto. For example, when a law repeals a previous law, the repealed legislation no longer applies to the situations it once did, even if such situations arose before the law was repealed. The principle of prohibiting the continued application of these kinds of laws is also known as Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali.

Generally speaking, ex post facto laws are seen as a violation of the rule of law as it applies in a free and democratic society. Most common law jurisdictions do not permit retroactive legislation, though some have suggested that judge-made 'law' is retroactive as a new precedent applies to events that occurred prior to the judicial decision. In some nations that follow the Westminster system of government, such as the United Kingdom, ex post facto laws are technically possible as parliamentary supremacy allows the parliament to pass any law it wishes. However, in a nation with an entrenched bill of rights or a written constitution, ex post facto legislation may be prohibited.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto