Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 616.0

529US2

Unit: $U52

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

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

541

Opinion of the Court

they reversed the burden of proof. But Cummings nowhere
suggests that a reversal of the burden of proof is all the
fourth category encompasses. And we think there is no
good reason to draw a line between laws that lower the
burden of proof and laws that reduce the quantum of evi-
dence necessary to meet that burden; the two types of laws
are indistinguishable in all meaningful ways relevant to
concerns of the Ex Post Facto Clause. See supra, at 530–
534; see also Cummings, 4 Wall., at 325 (“The legal result
must be the same, for what cannot be done directly cannot
be done indirectly. The Constitution deals with substance,
not shadows”).

As for Texas’ second piece of evidence, it asserts that the
law in Fenwick’s case, requiring two witnesses to convict a
person for high treason, traces its origins to the ancient
Roman law concept known as the “rule of number,” under
which “the probative value of testimony would be in-
creased if others testifying to the same facts swore an
oath.” Brief for Respondent 20. The “less testimony” to
which Fenwick’s case refers, the argument runs, concerns
lowering the probative value required to convict, i. e., a re-
duction in the burden of proof.

Even if that historical argument were correct, the same
response to Texas’ Cummings-based argument is applicable.
If the tes-
But we think the historical premise is mistaken.
timony of one witness rather than two truly reﬂected a less
credible showing, and if the House of Commons truly thought
it labored under a lesser burden of proof, then one would
expect some sort of reference to that in Fenwick’s case. Yet
the few direct references to the burden of proof that were
made during the debates are to the contrary; they indicate
something roughly the equivalent of a beyond-a-reasonable-
doubt standard.29 And at least one Member expressly de-

29 See, e. g., Proceedings 75 (“If upon what I hear, I am of Opinion, he
is notoriously Guilty, I shall freely pass the Bill.
If I do so much as
doubt that he is Guilty, according to the old Rule, Quod dubitas ne feceris