Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 637

529US2

Unit: $U52

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

562

CARMELL v. TEXAS

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

prosecution’s admissible evidence will be sufﬁcient to sup-
port a conviction if a rational factﬁnder presented with that
evidence could ﬁnd the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt. The 1993 repeal of the corroboration requirement
for victims between the ages of 14 and 18 did not lower that
“sufﬁciency of the evidence” hurdle; it simply expanded the
range of methods the State could use to surmount it.

To be sure, one might descriptively say in an individ-
ual case that the uncorroborated testimony of the victim
would be “sufﬁcient” to convict under the new version of
Article 38.07 and “insufﬁcient” under the old. But that can-
not be enough to invalidate a statute as ex post facto.
If
it were, then all evidentiary rules that work to the de-
fendant’s detriment would be unconstitutional as applied
to offenses committed before their enactment—an outcome
our cases decisively reject. See infra, at 570–571 (discuss-
ing Thompson v. Missouri, 171 U. S. 380 (1898), and Hopt v.
Territory of Utah, 110 U. S. 574 (1884), which upheld the
retroactive application of evidentiary rules governing the
authentication of documents and the competency of felons to
testify, respectively). A defendant whose conviction turned,
for example, on an item of hearsay evidence considered in-
admissible at the time of the offense but made admissible by
a later enacted statute might accurately describe the new
statute as one that permits conviction on less evidence than
was “sufﬁcient” under prior law. But our precedents estab-
lish that such a defendant has no valid ex post facto claim.
See infra, at 570–571. Neither does Carmell.

The Court attempts to distinguish Article 38.07 from
garden-variety evidentiary rules by asserting that the latter
“are ordinarily evenhanded, in the sense that they may bene-
ﬁt either the State or the defendant in any given case.”
Ante, at 533, n. 23. The truth of this assertion is not at all
clear. Evidence is never admissible in its own right; it must
be admitted for some purpose. Rules of admissibility typi-
cally take that basic fact into account, often restricting the