Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 636.0

529US2

Unit: $U52

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

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

561

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

number of witnesses or items of proof to support a sexual
assault conviction.6

The Court also declares several times that the amended
version of Article 38.07 “subverts the presumption of in-
nocence.” See ante, at 532; see also ante, at 533, nn. 22,
23, 546. The phrase comes from Cummings v. Missouri,
4 Wall. 277 (1867), in which the Court struck down a series
of post-Civil War amendments to the Missouri Constitu-
tion that imposed penalties on persons unable or unwilling
to swear an oath that they had not aided the Confederacy.
The amendments, the Court said in Cummings, “subvert
the presumptions of innocence” because “[t]hey assume that
the parties are guilty [and] . . . call upon [them] to estab-
lish their innocence” by swearing the oath.
Id., at 328.
Nothing of the kind is involved here. Article 38.07 did
not impose a presumption of guilt on Carmell and then
saddle him with the task of overcoming it. The burden of
persuasion remained at all times with the State. See Tex.
Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 38.03 (Vernon Supp. 2000).
Carmell’s presumption of innocence is thus untouched by the
current Article 38.07’s recognition of K. M.’s full testimonial
stature.

The Court places perhaps its greatest weight on the “suf-
ﬁciency of the evidence” label, see ante, at 547–552, but the
label will not stick. As just noted, Article 38.07 has never
dictated what it takes in all cases, quantitatively or qualita-
tively, for evidence to be sufﬁcient to convict. To the con-
trary, under both the old and new versions of the statute the

6 Moreover, even in a case founded on the victim’s testimony, the pre-
1993 version of Article 38.07 would permit the prosecution to corroborate
that testimony without introducing any additional evidence going to the
defendant’s guilt, because corroboration could be provided by outcry,
which is hearsay and inadmissible to prove the truth of the matter as-
serted. See Heckathorne v. State, 697 S. W. 2d 8, 12 (Tex. App. 1985)
(“[A]n outcry should not be admitted for its truth, but merely as evidence
that the victim informed someone of the offense.”).