Four justices dissented.

The statute permitted prosecution of cases in which the limitations period had expired before its enactment. The Court said this violated the federal constitution’s ex post facto clause.

The Court did not find fault with a far more common retroactive application of extended limitations periods: applying them to all cases in which the previous limitations period was still running at the time of the extension.

The Court noted that in the 1980’s many state legislatures extended limitations periods for child sex offenses. It offered no criticism of the extensions and no suggestion that any extension could be unconstitutionally long. It did, though, recognize at page 24 the challenge in defending against a stale accusation:

Memories fade, and witnesses can die or disappear. Such problems can plague child abuse cases, where recollection after so many years may be uncertain, and “recovered” memories faulty, but may nonetheless lead to prosecutions that destroy families. See, e.g., Holdsworth, Is It Repressed Memory with Delayed Recall or Is It False Memory Syndrome? The Controversy and Its Potential Legal Implications, 22 Law & Psychol. Rev. 103, 103-104 (1998).