Law Question

**Professor420** · February 20, 2007, 06:11 AM

If you went to jail for something (let's say, possession of a small amount of drugs), and then a law was passed that decriminalized/legalized what happened to you so that the same 'offense' doesn't break the law at all, do you still have to serve out your jail term? Or are you acquitted of your crime?

**the Black Prince** · February 20, 2007, 11:13 AM

you have to serve out the sentence.

laws on the whole do not act retroactively. you cannot be found guilty of doing something that wasn't a crime when you did it, nor can your sentence be increased if the law changes. but by the same count, you cannot be acquitted or your sentence reduced if the law changes.

if you are sentenced for 5 years, you will serve 5 years, not 5 years plus or minus any changes future laws introduce. its the basic principle of legal certainty.

**Lasher** · February 20, 2007, 11:43 AM

If you ever notice rich/celebritys never go to jail for doing drugs they go to country club rehab centers while a poor person would instantly go to jail for years.

**the Black Prince** · February 20, 2007, 11:51 AM

odd then, that in 2006, over 12,000 in England and Wales were sentenced to Drug Treatment and Testing Orders. they can't all have been celebrities and rich people.

**Markas** · February 20, 2007, 02:09 PM

Originally Posted by the Black Prince

odd then, that in 2006, over 12,000 in England and Wales were sentenced to Drug Treatment and Testing Orders. they can't all have been celebrities and rich people.

Oh I dunno... they were all probably on Big Brother at one point.

**Erich von Manstein** · February 20, 2007, 12:30 PM

It depends on which legal jurisdiction you live in. Here in the United States, it depends on whether the legislature passing the law includes a retroactive measure freeing those who have been imprisoned for the now-legal behavior. The vast majority of laws passed do this. There have been instances where this has not been the case, however (namely, a black youth of 18 years was thrown in jail for a decade for videotaping himself receiving a blowjob from a 16 year old; she pressed charges and he was found guilty of a Georgia law that placed no age exceptions on statutory rape; his advocate convinced the GA legislature to repeal the law but, in her naivity, forgot to ask for the retroactive measure).

**the Black Prince** · February 20, 2007, 02:00 PM

in the UK, retroactivity is very much the exception not the rule. as far as criminal law is concerned, retroactive laws are banned by the European Convention on Human Rights

**Erich von Manstein** · February 20, 2007, 02:14 PM

What form of retroactivity are you referring to? The US Constitution prohibits the jailing of a person because of a retroactive law, but allows for the release of prisoners because of such laws. Does the ECHR prohibit both forms?

**the Black Prince** · February 20, 2007, 02:40 PM

not explicitly. Article 7 refers only to harsher penalties and actions that were not crimes when committed. however its generally considered fundamental to the principle of certainty of law that you are tried and sentenced according to the law of the time. if you appeal a case on sentencing, the appeals court will look at the law as it was when you were sentenced regardless of any changes that have since been made whether they benefit you or not.

**Cluny the Scourge** · February 20, 2007, 04:10 PM

Ordinarily there were need to have been some defect in the drafting of the original legislation, an appeal court (from High Court up to Lords) finding by interpretation that it is insufficiently precise to mitigate against these offenders in the first place - those who had already been sentenced in the criminal courts, however long they'd been serving, would then all have to be freed and their convictions quashed.

I suppose that subsequent decriminalisation of an offence might be taken into account as one factor in parole-hearings for individual cases, in addition to good behaviour, etc.