Tuesday, July 29, 2003
 
Ex Post Facto Are Just Words from a Dead Language

In Waukesha, Wisconsin, they're throwing the new book at a guy who surreptitiously videotaped girlfriends nude. Well, not nude, since that's art. They were naked. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:
    Avello was charged with two felonies in February for possessing the tapes without the women's consent and producing them while each was "nude in a circumstance in which she had a reasonable expectation of privacy."
A possible legal problem arises since the videotapes were made in the late 1990s, and the law that they're rolling up and spanking Avello with was enacted in 2001. Obviously, this would be an unconstitutional application, ex post facto, of laws. But this is a CINS (Crime Involving Nakedness or Sex) situation, so it's important to chillingsworth this guy, lock him up for a decade or two, deprive him of rights to vote and own guns, and put his name in an extra bad database registry.

One of the State's men says:
    Assistant District Attorney Ted S. Szczupakiewicz disagrees.

    "I don't believe that time and place is relevant at all under the law as it existed in November, when the tapes were located and, according to the state's position, found to be in Mr. Avello's possession," he told Binn.
There you have it. Ex Post Facto overruled by an ADA. Thanks for coming up with the idea, founding fathers, but it's so eighteenth century.

Just in case you bump into a judge who disagrees, Mr., uh, Ted, you can always charge Avello with not having a business license.

 
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."