Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 595

529US2

Unit: $U52

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520

CARMELL v. TEXAS

Opinion of the Court

Weaver v. Graham, 450 U. S. 24, 31 (1981) (“The critical ques-
tion [for an ex post facto violation] is whether the law
changes the legal consequences of acts completed before its
effective date”). What are at stake, then, are the four con-
victions on counts 7 through 10 for offenses committed be-
tween June 1992 and July 1993 when the victim was 14 or 15
years old and the new Texas law was not in effect.

Petitioner appealed his four convictions to the Court of
Appeals for the Second District of Texas in Fort Worth.
See 963 S. W. 2d 833 (1998). Petitioner argued that under
the pre-1993 version of Article 38.07, which was the law in
effect at the time of his alleged conduct, those convictions
could not stand, because they were based solely on the vic-
tim’s testimony, and the victim was not under 14 years old
at the time of the offenses, nor had she made a timely outcry.
The Court of Appeals rejected petitioner’s argument.
Under the 1993 amendment to Article 38.07, the court ob-
served, petitioner could be convicted on the victim’s testi-
mony alone because she was under 18 years old at the time
of the offenses. The court held that applying this amend-
ment retrospectively to petitioner’s case did not violate the
Ex Post Facto Clause:

“The statute as amended does not increase the punish-
ment nor change the elements of the offense that the
It merely ‘removes existing restric-
State must prove.
tions upon the competency of certain classes of persons
as witnesses’ and is, thus, a rule of procedure. Hopt v.
Utah, 110 U. S. 574, 590 . . . (1884).”

Id., at 836.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied discretionary
review. Because the question whether the retrospective ap-
plication of a statute repealing a corroboration requirement
has given rise to conﬂicting decisions,5 we granted peti-

5 Compare Utah v. Schreuder, 726 P. 2d 1215 (Utah 1986) (ﬁnding ex post
facto violation); Virgin Islands v. Civil, 591 F. 2d 255 (CA3 1979) (same),
with New York v. Hudy, 73 N. Y. 2d 40, 535 N. E. 2d 250 (1988) (no ex post