Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 624

529US2

Unit: $U52

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

Cite as: 529 U. S. 513 (2000)

549

Opinion of the Court

wick’s law and the Treason Clause are different from Article
38.07; with the ﬁrst two laws, “two witnesses [were] nec-
essary to support a conviction,” ibid. (emphasis added),
whereas with Article 38.07, the victim’s testimony plus cor-
roboration is not “necessary to convict in every case,” post,
at 560 (emphasis added). But a closer look at Fenwick’s law
and at the Treason Clause shows that this supposed dis-
tinction is simply incorrect. Fenwick’s law stated that no
person could be convicted of high treason “but by and
upon the Oaths and Testimony of Two lawfull Witnesses . . .
unlesse the Party indicted and arraigned or tryed shall
willingly without violence in open Court confesse the
.” See
same or shall stand Mute or refuse to plead .
n. 15, supra (emphasis added). And the Treason Clause, of
course, states that “No Person shall be convicted of Trea-
son unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same
overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.” U. S. Const.,
Art. III, § 3 (emphasis added). Plainly, in neither instance
were two witnesses “necessary to support a conviction,” as
the dissent claims. Accordingly, its assertion that Article
38.07 “is nothing like the two-witness rule on which Fenwick
vainly relied” appears erroneous, as does its accusation that
our reliance on Fenwick’s case “simply will not wash.” Post,
at 573.34

.

The dissent’s ﬁnal argument relies upon Hopt and runs
something like this. The “effect” of Article 38.07, it claims,
is the same, in certain cases, as a witness credibility rule.
See post, at 559, 563–566, 575. However differently Hopt-

34 Perhaps one can draw a distinction between convictions based on con-
fessions in open court and convictions based on third-party evidence and
the like (though how such a distinction would comport with the language
of the fourth category is not apparent). For example, an accused’s confes-
sion might be thought to be outside of the State’s control. But see n. 24,
supra.
It is not clear at all, though, that the availability of evidence other
than the victim’s testimony is any more within the State’s control than is
the defendant’s confession.