UCLA School of Law professor Beth Colgan’s scholarship has been cited in a U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the case of Ellingworth v. United States, which the Court decided on January 20.

The issue in Ellingworth was whether restitution that is imposed under the federal Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA), is punishment for purposes of the Ex Post Facto Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The clause, in article I, section 9, clause 3 of the Constitution, prohibits laws from being enacted that, among other things, impose additional punishment for a criminal or penal offense that was unavailable at the time when the offense was committed. In a unanimous decision, the Court held that restitution imposed under the MVRA “is plainly criminal punishment.” The Court further clarified that even if a penalty has nonpunitive aims — in this case, compensating victims — it still may serve as punishment.

In an amicus brief that she submitted in the case, Colgan, a leading scholar of punishment and the Eighth Amendment, elucidated the history and legal background of the nature of punishment that was at the heart of the matter.

Justice Clarence Thomas cited Colgan’s work twice in a concurring opinion that he wrote and Justice Neil Gorsuch joined. There, the justices sought “to clarify the foundation of [the Court’s] precedent” on the issue, dating to the “1798 decision in Calder v. Bull, [which] established that the Ex Post Facto Clauses forbid only those retroactive laws that impose ‘punishment’ for a ‘crime.’” The concurrence continued, “Over the 228 years since Calder, the Court has struggled to articulate what it means for a law to impose punishment for a crime, and thus to be subject to the Ex Post Facto Clauses.” Colgan’s scholarship was a key part of their discussion.

Colgan joined the UCLA Law faculty in 2014 and is one of the country’s leading experts on constitutional and policy issues related to the use of financial sanctions as punishment and particularly on the Eighth Amendment’s excessive fines clause. She teaches courses related to criminal law and procedure, and she won the law school’s highest teaching honor, the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching, as well as selection by the graduating class as Professor of the Year, in 2019.