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=== The Motivational Test ===  

=== The Motivational Test ===  

The third and final test for punishment considers whether the legislature that enacted a challenged law was motivated by an intent to punish the targeted person(s). Courts applying this test examine the bill’s text and legislative history to determine whether lawmakers expressed punitive intent.  The motivational test is not usually dispositive. The Nixon Court opined that a law may qualify as a bill of attainder even without a “formal legislative announcement of moral blameworthiness or punishment.” Moreover, if the historical and functional tests are not satisfied, the motivational test standing alone does not compel a finding that a law is punitive unless the reviewing court finds “unmistakable evidence of punitive intent.” However, a significant amount of punitive language in congressional documents or legislative debate may support a finding that a law imposes punishment. For instance, committee reports on the legislation at issue in Lovett characterized the affected individuals as “guilty of having engaged in ‘subversive activity’” and “unfit” for government service. In Foretich, the D.C. Circuit cited statements of multiple legislators characterizing the child at the center of the custody dispute as a “victim” and the legislation as “deal[ing] with the inadequacies of the court system” and “bringing justice” to her family. By contrast, isolated statements by a few lawmakers generally do not suffice to show a legislative intent to punish. In Kaspersky, the D.C. Circuit considered one Senator’s statements that the “case against Kaspersky Lab [wa]s overwhelming” and that “strong ties between Kaspersky Lab and the Kremlin [we]re alarming and well-documented.” The court concluded that “even if [the Senator’s] statements did reveal a personal desire to punish Kaspersky, the company cite[d] no corroborating evidence indicating that other members of Congress shared her supposedly punitive motivations.” In ACORN, an organization that had been excluded from receiving federal funding cited statements of “nearly ten members of the House of Representatives” labeling the organization as corrupt and accusing it of specific offenses. The Second Circuit concluded, “Despite the evidence of punitive intent on the part of some members of Congress, unlike in Lovett, there is no congressional finding of guilt in this case.” The court thus held that the statements were “insufficient to establish—by themselves—the clearest proof of punitive intent necessary for a bill of attainder.”}}

The third and final test for punishment considers whether the legislature that enacted a challenged law was motivated by an intent to punish the targeted person(s). Courts applying this test examine the bill’s text and legislative history to determine whether lawmakers expressed punitive intent.   

 

The motivational test is not usually dispositive. The Nixon Court opined that a law may qualify as a bill of attainder even without a “formal legislative announcement of moral blameworthiness or punishment.” Moreover, if the historical and functional tests are not satisfied, the motivational test standing alone does not compel a finding that a law is punitive unless the reviewing court finds “unmistakable evidence of punitive intent.” However, a significant amount of punitive language in congressional documents or legislative debate may support a finding that a law imposes punishment. For instance, committee reports on the legislation at issue in Lovett characterized the affected individuals as “guilty of having engaged in ‘subversive activity’” and “unfit” for government service. In Foretich, the D.C. Circuit cited statements of multiple legislators characterizing the child at the center of the custody dispute as a “victim” and the legislation as “deal[ing] with the inadequacies of the court system” and “bringing justice” to her family.  

 

By contrast, isolated statements by a few lawmakers generally do not suffice to show a legislative intent to punish. In Kaspersky, the D.C. Circuit considered one Senator’s statements that the “case against Kaspersky Lab [wa]s overwhelming” and that “strong ties between Kaspersky Lab and the Kremlin [we]re alarming and well-documented.” The court concluded that “even if [the Senator’s] statements did reveal a personal desire to punish Kaspersky, the company cite[d] no corroborating evidence indicating that other members of Congress shared her supposedly punitive motivations.” In ACORN, an organization that had been excluded from receiving federal funding cited statements of “nearly ten members of the House of Representatives” labeling the organization as corrupt and accusing it of specific offenses. The Second Circuit concluded, “Despite the evidence of punitive intent on the part of some members of Congress, unlike in Lovett, there is no congressional finding of guilt in this case.” The court thus held that the statements were “insufficient to establish—by themselves—the clearest proof of punitive intent necessary for a bill of attainder.”}}

==Further reading==

==Further reading==