Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 619.0

529US2

Unit: $U52

[09-26-01 10:36:40] PAGES PGT: OPIN

544

CARMELL v. TEXAS

Opinion of the Court

tency of certain classes of persons as witnesses, relate
to modes of procedure only, in which no one can be
said to have a vested right, and which the State, upon
grounds of public policy, may regulate at pleasure.
Such regulations of the mode in which the facts con-
stituting guilt may be placed before the jury, can be
made applicable to prosecutions or trials thereafter had,
without reference to the date of the commission of the
offence charged.”

Id., at 589–590 (emphases added).

Thompson v. Missouri, also relied upon by Texas, involved
a similar ex post facto challenge to the retrospective appli-
cation of a law permitting the introduction of expert hand-
writing testimony as competent evidence, where the rule
in place at the time of the offense did not permit such evi-
dence to be introduced. Mainly on the authority of Hopt,
the Court rejected Thompson’s ex post facto challenge as
well.

Texas’ reliance on Hopt is misplaced. Article 38.07 is
simply not a witness competency rule.31
It does not “sim-
ply enlarge the class of persons who may be competent to
testify,” and it does not “only remove existing restrictions
upon the competency of certain classes of persons as wit-
nesses.”
110 U. S., at 589–590. Both before and after the
amendment, the victim’s testimony was competent evidence.
Texas Rule of Criminal Evidence 601(a) already prescribes
that “[e]very person is competent to be a witness except
as otherwise provided in these rules,” and Rule 601(a)(2)
already contains its own provision respecting child wit-

31 We recognize that the Court of Appeals stated Article 38.07 “merely
‘removes existing restrictions upon the competency of certain classes of
persons as witnesses,’ ” 963 S. W. 2d, at 836 (quoting Hopt, 110 U. S., at
590); see supra, at 520. Whether a state law is properly characterized as
falling under the Ex Post Facto Clause, however, is a federal question
we determine for ourselves. Cf. Lindsey v. Washington, 301 U. S. 397,
400 (1937).