State v. Mullen
Rhode Island Supreme Court
740 A.2d 783 (1999)
Timothy Mullen (defendant) was charged under Rhode Island's sodomy statute with nine acts against a female victim aged 14 to 17. While the indictment was pending, the legislature amended the statute to remove human beings from its scope entirely, limiting it to bestiality. The trial court dismissed the indictment as no longer supportable, and the State (plaintiff) appealed, invoking the state's general savings statute, which preserves pending prosecutions despite a statute's repeal.
Whether, in Rhode Island, the state's general savings statute allows prosecution of pending criminal matters at the time of a criminal statute's repeal or amendment, so long as the statutory change made is not substantive in nature.