Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 650.0

529US2

Unit: $U52

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

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

575

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

quantity.” Weiler, 323 U. S., at 608.
If the Court wishes to
rely on the fourth Calder category to render Texas’ altered
evidentiary rule prospective only, it should do so forthrightly
by overruling Hopt and Thompson v. Missouri, rather than
by attempting to portray Article 38.07 as a quantitative suf-
ﬁciency rule indistinguishable from the two-witness require-
ment that ﬁgured in John Fenwick’s case.

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In sum, it is well settled (or was until today) that retro-
active changes to rules concerning the admissibility of evi-
dence and the competency of witnesses to testify cannot be
ex post facto. Because Article 38.07 is in both function and
purpose a rule of admissibility, Thompson v. Missouri, Hopt,
Beazell, and Collins dictate that its retroactive application
does not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. That conclusion
comports perfectly with the dual purposes that underlie the
Clause: ensuring fair notice so that individuals can rely on
the laws in force at the time they engage in conduct, and
sustaining the separation of powers while preventing the
passage of vindictive legislation. The Court today thus not
only brings about an “undeﬁned enlargement of the Ex Post
Facto Clause,” Collins, 497 U. S., at 46, that conﬂicts with
established precedent, it also fails to advance the Clause’s
fundamental purposes. For these reasons, I dissent.