Home US English bill of attainder

Definition of bill of attainder in English:

bill of attainder

phrase

(also act of attainder)
historical

  • An item of legislation (prohibited by the US Constitution) that inflicts attainder without judicial process.

noun

See attainder

see attainder
‘Congress enacted a bill of attainder against him after gatekeepers called for his head.’
  • ‘An analysis under the applicable standards for a bill of attainder show that this is clearly what the statutes are.’
  • ‘It is a bill of attainder. disgusting for the congress to attempt to adjudicate an individual case.’
  • ‘Parliament began to use bills of attainder in 1459 to exercise judicial authority.’
  • ‘A reader has suggested to me that Prop. 64, so applied, is an unconstitutional bill of attainder.’
  • ‘Not all bills of attainder were aimed at upstarts like Haxey or rebels like Cade.’
  • ‘The statutes which the Supreme Court has found to be bills of attainder were enactments that penalized individuals to one degree or another for some immutable past behavior or affiliation.’
  • ‘‘Congress violated the constitutional prohibition against bills of attainder by singling out plaintiff for legislative punishment,’ the court said.’
  • ‘There Shall Be No Bill of Attainder or ex Post Facto Laws. - No bill of attainder or ex post facto law, retroactive law, or any other law impairing the obligation of contracts.’
  • ‘No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or making any irrevocable grant of special privileges or immunities shall be passed.’
  • ‘When the Constitution was adopted, bills of attainder and bills of pains and penalties were well known in the English law.’
  • ‘No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, retroactive law, or laws impairing the obligation of contract or making irrevocable grant of special privileges or immunities shall be passed.’
  • ‘Certainly the confiscation of property has always been one of the aspects of administering a bill of attainder, and it should not be allowed in American justice.’
  • ‘In sentencing him, the Parliament has essentially revived the institution of the bill of attainder.’
  • ‘In May 1660, certain regicides were also served with bills of attainder even though they were dead - Oliver Cromwell and John Bradshaw (the judge at Charles I trial) were the most famous.’
  • ‘Does this Constitution any where grant the power of suspending the habeas corpus, to make ex post facto laws, pass bills of attainder, or grant titles of nobility?’
  • ‘The ruling also marked a rare application of the constitutional prohibition on bills of attainder - essentially a legislative decision to inflict punishment on a specific individual.’
  • ‘They stand for the proposition that legislative acts, no matter what their form, that apply either to named individuals or to easily ascertainable members of a group in such a way as to inflict punishment on them without a judicial trial are bills of attainder prohibited by the Con- [328 U.S.303, 316] situation.’