Carmell v. Texas, 529 U.S. 513, 36 (2000)

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548

CARMELL v. TEXAS

Opinion of the Court

law, demonstrates that Texas perceived the issue of witness trustworthiness as both an admissibility issue and as a sufficiency question; that it long ago abandoned its rule that victims of these types of crimes are incompetent as witnesses; and that Article 38.07 codifies Texas' sufficiency of the evidence solution to the trustworthiness issue.

Next, the dissent argues that under Texas' law "the prosecution need not introduce the victim's testimony at all, much less any corroboration of that testimony." Post, at 559. Instead, "[u]nder both the old and new versions of the statute, a conviction could be sustained on the testimony of a single third-party witness, on purely circumstantial evidence, or in any number of other ways." Ibid. Because other avenues of prosecution—besides the victim's testimony (with or without corroboration or outcry)—remain available to the State, Article 38.07 "did not change the quantity of proof necessary to convict in every case." Post, at 560 (emphasis added in part and deleted in part); see also post, at 561 ("Article 38.07 has never dictated what it takes in all cases . . . for evidence to be sufficient to convict" (emphasis added)). Accordingly, the dissent urges, more evidence (in the form of corroboration) is not really required under Article 38.07. See post, at 560-561, 574. It is unclear whether the dissent's argument is that laws cannot be sufficiency of the evidence rules unless they apply to every conviction for a particular crime, or whether the dissent means that sufficiency rules not applicable in every prosecution for a particular crime do not fall within Calder's fourth category, which refers to less testimony "required . . . in order to convict the offender." 3 Dall., at 390 (emphasis added in part and deleted in part). Either way, the argument fails.

Fenwick's case once again provides the guide. The dissent agrees that "[t]he treason statute in effect at the time of John Fenwick's conspiracy, like the Treason Clause of our Constitution, embodied . . . a quantitative sufficiency [of the evidence] rule." Post, at 573. But, it argues, Fen-

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