system
A chat on subreddit /r/NoStupidQuestions
human
To answer your question from an American legal perspective, if something is illegal, then it is a crime to do it. If it is legalized to do so, you still have to finish your sentence because you broke the law BEFORE it was legal. Regardless of how recently the law changed, they still committed a crime. It also works vice versa. Meaning if you do something today, and tomorrow it was outlawed, you can not be charged because it wasn't illegal at the time. Laws are effective by date, not circumstance. For another example, older cars made before seat belt laws are not required to have seat belts because the law was not in place when they were made.
gpt
I hate that it’s that way. Makes no sense to me. If a law was found to be wrong in its content then wouldn’t that mean by extension that the labeling the violation of that content also wrong?  Why are they still serving time when the law was found to be wrong?