Re: Clear Signals

["'A. Joseph Ross'" <lawyer@world.std.com>]

On Thu, 29 May 1997, Dan Strassberg wrote:

> I've always heard these things called
> "grandfather clauses" but my father (who was a stickler for such things)
> insisted that these were ex post facto clauses--not grandfather clauses.
> Counselor, can you tell me which term is correct?

Ex Post Facto refers to a law which makes an act a crime which was not a
crime when it was done or which increases the penalty for a crime
retroactively.  Such laws are explicitly forbidden by the Constitution --
which is why laws such as the one requiring juvenile murder suspects to
stand trial as an adult cannot be applied to the pending case of that
murder in Somerville.

Grandfather clauses are provisions in laws which say that changes in legal
requirements will not apply now to ongoing situations.  For example, a
station that was operating legally under former requirements will not be
required to comply with the current requirements.  They are common in
zoning laws, where they are called a "nonconforming use."

I seem to remember from high-school history that the term originated in
the post-Reconstruction South, where poll taxes, literacy tests, and other
devices were used to prevent Black people from voting.  In order to keep
these rules from also preventing White people from voting, they contained
clauses which said, generally, that you could vote if you could show
(usually by public records) that your grandfather had voted. 

==============================================================================
  A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                                          617/367-0468
  15 Court Square                                       lawyer@world.std.com
  Boston, MA 02108-2573                        http://world.std.com/~lawyer/
==============================================================================

------------------------------