McNulty

The appellant was convicted of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to suffer the penalty of death; and from the judgment and an order denying a new trial he appealed to this court. This court examined and considered all the points made on the appeal, determined that no error had been committed at the trial, and ordered the judgment affirmed. Afterwards, however, and before the remittitur went down, upon the suggestion of a difficulty caused by amendments of the' law concerning the death penalty *436 which had been enacted by the legislature after the conviction of the appellant, the judgment of affirmance was set aside, and an argument ordered as to the effect of said amendments. The amendments, if constitutional, repealed the former law upon the subject, and contained no express saving clause by which past offenses might be punished under the law as it stood at the time of their commission. But under the authority of the recent decision of the supreme court of the United States in Ex parte Medley, 134 U. S. 160 , the change made by said amendments in the punishment was so material as to render it, as against appellant, ex post facto and void, under the constitution of the…