Cite as: 529 U. S. 513 (2000)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
American law, such instances have been almost exclusively confined to two contexts: perjury, see Weiler v. United States, 323 U. S. 606 (1945), and treason, see U. S. Const., Art. III, § 3, cl. 1 ("No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."). See generally Wig-more, Required Numbers of Witnesses; A Brief History of the Numerical System in England, 15 Harv. L. Rev. 83, 100- 108 (1901).
The treason statute in effect at the time of John Fenwick's conspiracy, like the Treason Clause of our Constitution, embodied just such a quantitative sufficiency rule: As long as the accused traitor put the prosecution to its proof by pleading not guilty, the sworn testimony of two witnesses was necessary to support a conviction. The Court describes at great length the attainder of Fenwick, which served as a cautionary model for Justice Chase's explication of the fourth category in Calder. See ante, at 526-530.14 This excursion into post-Restoration English history is diverting, but the Court's statement that "the circumstances of petitioner's case parallel those of Fenwick's case 300 years earlier," ante, at 530, simply will not wash. The preamendment version of Article 38.07 is nothing like the two-witness rule on which Fenwick vainly relied.15
First, the preamendment version of Article 38.07, unlike a two-witness rule, did not apply indifferently to all who testify. Rather, it branded a particular class of witnesses—
14 Tellingly, the Court offers no evidence that anyone at the time of the Framers considered witness corroboration requirements of the type involved here to fall within the scope of the ex post facto prohibition.
15 When the Texas Legislature wants to enact a two-witness rule, it knows how to do so. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 38.15 (Vernon Supp. 2000) ("No person can be convicted of treason except upon the testimony of at least two witnesses to the same overt act, or upon his own confession in open court."); Art. 38.18(a) ("No person may be convicted of perjury or aggravated perjury if proof that his statement is false rests solely upon the testimony of one witness other than the defendant.").
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