Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 621.0

529US2

Unit: $U52

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

546

CARMELL v. TEXAS

Opinion of the Court

.

. is supportable on” certain evidence.

tion .
It is Rule
601(a), not Article 38.07, that addresses who is “competent to
testify.” We think the differences in these laws are plain.33
Moreover, a sufﬁciency of the evidence rule resonates with
the interests to which the Ex Post Facto Clause is addressed
In partic-
in a way that a witness competency rule does not.
ular, the elements of unfairness and injustice in subverting
the presumption of innocence are directly implicated by
rules lowering the quantum of evidence required to convict.
Such rules will always run in the prosecution’s favor, be-
cause they always make it easier to convict the accused.
This is so even if the accused is not in fact guilty, because
the coercive pressure of a more easily obtained conviction
may induce a defendant to plead to a lesser crime rather
than run the risk of conviction on a greater crime. Witness
competency rules, to the contrary, do not necessarily run
in the State’s favor. A felon witness competency rule, for
example, might help a defendant if a felon is able to relate
credible exculpatory evidence.

Nor do such rules necessarily affect, let alone subvert,
the presumption of innocence. The issue of the admissibility
of evidence is simply different from the question whether
the properly admitted evidence is sufﬁcient to convict the
defendant. Evidence admissibility rules do not go to the
issue of guilt, nor to whether a conviction, as a
general
matter of law, may be sustained. Prosecutors may satisfy
all the requirements of any number of witness competency

33 The dissent seems unwilling to concede this distinction. Though it
admits that under Article 38.07 the uncorroborated victim is “not literally
forbidden from testifying,” post, at 563, it also insists that testimony is
“inadmissible,” post, at 571, and that “the jury will not be permitted to
consider it,” post, at 555, n. 3. See also post, at 557, 565 (referring to
Article 38.07 as a rule about witness “credibility”); post, at 556, 570, 575
(referring to Texas’ law as a rule of “admissibility”); post, at 553, 557, 563,
564, and n. 8, 575 (referring to the law as one about “competency”). We
think it is clear from the text of Article 38.07 and Rule 601, however, that
the victim’s testimony alone is not inadmissible; it is just insufﬁcient.