Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 629

529US2

Unit: $U52

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

554

CARMELL v. TEXAS

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

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Petitioner Scott Leslie Carmell began sexually abusing his
stepdaughter, “K. M.,” in the spring of 1991, when K. M. was
13 years old. He continued to do so through March 1995.
The speciﬁc question before the Court concerns Carmell’s
sexual assault on K. M. in June 1992, when K. M. was 14.1
K. M. did not inform anyone about that assault or about any
of Carmell’s other sexual advances toward her until some-
time around March 1995, when she told a friend and then
her mother, Eleanor Alexander. Alexander went to the po-
lice, and Carmell was arrested and charged in a 15-count
indictment.

Under Article 38.07 of the Texas Code of Criminal Proce-
dure as it stood at the time of the assault, a conviction for
sexual assault was supportable on the uncorroborated testi-
mony of the victim if the victim was younger than 14 years
If the victim was 14 years
old at the time of the offense.
old or older, however, the victim’s testimony could support a
conviction only if that testimony was corroborated by other
evidence. One form of corroboration, speciﬁcally described
in Article 38.07 itself, was known as “outcry”: The victim’s
testimony could support a conviction if he or she had in-
formed another person, other than the defendant, about the
offense within six months of its occurrence. Tex. Code
Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 38.07 (Vernon 1983).

Article 38.07 was amended in 1993. Under the new ver-
sion, which was in effect at the time of Carmell’s trial, the
victim’s uncorroborated testimony can support a convic-
tion as long as the victim was under 18 years of age at the
time of the offense. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 38.07
(Vernon Supp. 2000). The corroboration requirement con-

1 The Court correctly notes that Carmell’s ex post facto challenge applies
equally to three other counts on which he was convicted. Ante, at 518–
519. This Court’s grant of review, however, was limited to the ﬁrst ques-
tion presented in Carmell’s petition for certiorari, which encompassed only
the count charging the June 1992 assault. Pet. for Cert. 4.