The Supreme Court held oral argument on Oct. 14 in a case that prompted the justices to wrestle with whether crime victims’ restitution should be considered a form of punishment under the Constitution.
The ex post facto clause of the Constitution prohibits Congress from retroactively punishing someone for conduct that was legal at the time it was performed.
The case before the Supreme Court focuses on a man named Holsey Ellingburg Jr., who was convicted in 1996 of committing a bank robbery in Georgia. Ellingburg was sentenced to nearly 27 years in prison and five years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay more than $7,500 in restitution….