New 11th Cases

United States v. Beasley: The Eleventh gets slapped down and then has to explain why (kind of).

What is interesting about the case is the degree that the Supreme Court in Carr v. United States, 130 S.Ct. 2229 (2010) (which remanded Beasley) and the Eleventh took to avoid the obvious ex post facto problem with applying the law to Beasley. 

In sum, the Eleventh found that a federal law that made it a crime for somebody who is (1) required to register as a sex offender, (2) to travel in interstate commerce, and (3) fail to register in a new state, applied to a guy who moved to Georgia before the federal law took effect.  The Supreme Court reversed, reasoning that the plain language of the statute required travel to violate the law, and thus the law could only have been violated after it took effect. 

United States v. Weatherald:

Speaking of ex post facto, Weatherald addressed the problem of whether or not a court can utilize newer guidlines (2008) to a crime that was committed in 2002, if the newer guidlines are harsher:

"Thus, the application of the correct Guidelines range is of critical importance, and it cannot be said that the Ex Post Facto Clause is never implicated when a more recent, harsher, set of Guidelines is employed."

But still, in true Eleventh Circuit fashion, the judges managed to find that the defendants were not screwed enough to warrant reversal because the sentencing judge said he would have given the same sentence under either guideline.

"Appellants have presented no evidence that these sentences were affected by the district court’s reference to the 2008 Guidelines, and their speculation that the judge might have departed even further had he employed the 2002 Guidelines is not sufficient to show a substantial risk of harsher punishment."
...

"Therefore, we will only find an Ex Post Facto Clause violation when a district judge’s selection of a Guidelines range in effect at the time of sentencing rather than that at the time of the offense results in a substantial risk of harsher punishment."

Whatever happened to due process?  Harmless error is a beeotch.