Bill of attainder
Supreme Court cases

The Supreme Court emphasized the narrowness and rationality of bills of attainder in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425 (1977). During the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Congress passed the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, which required the General Services Administration to confiscate former President Richard Nixon 's presidential papers to prevent their destruction, screen out those which contained national security and other issues which might prevent their publication, and release the remainder of the papers to the public as fast as possible. The Supreme Court upheld the law in Nixon, arguing that specificity alone did not invalidate the act because the President constituted a "class of one". Thus, specificity was constitutional if it was rationally related to the class identified. The Court modified its punishment test, concluding that only those laws which historically offended the bill of attainder clause were invalid. The Court also found it significant that Nixon was compensated for the loss of his papers, which alleviated the punishment. The Court modified the punishment prong by holding that punishment could survive scrutiny if rationally related to other, nonpunitive goals. Finally, the Court concluded that the legislation must not be intended to punish; legislation enacted for otherwise legitimate purposes could be saved so long as punishment was a side-effect rather than the main purpose of the law.
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