Carmell v. Texas
The Supreme Court ruled that Texas violated the Constitution's ban on ex post facto laws by retroactively applying a 1993 change that let juries convict certain sex offenders using only the victim's testimony, when the crimes happened while the older law still required corroboration.
The 5-4 decision revives an old category of forbidden retroactive laws — those that reduce how much evidence the government needs to convict — and throws out four of the defendant's convictions that rested only on the victim's uncorroborated testimony.
“Requiring only the victim's testimony to convict, rather than the victim's testimony plus other corroborating evidence is surely "less testimony required to convict" in any straightforward sense of those words.”
The Court's core reasoning for why Texas's amended law fits the forbidden fourth category of ex post facto laws.
How it got here: A Texas appeals court upheld the convictions by applying the new law retroactively; Texas's highest criminal court denied review, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A Texas man was convicted on 15 counts of sexually abusing his stepdaughter over several years. Four of those convictions rested solely on the victim's testimony for offenses committed before a 1993 Texas law took effect that allowed convictions based on an under-18 victim's uncorroborated testimony alone; under the older law, only victims under 14 qualified for that exception.
The question before the Court
Could Texas apply a new law letting a sex-abuse conviction rest on the victim's word alone to crimes committed before that law existed?
The Court's answer
No — the Supreme Court ruled that Texas could not apply its 1993 law retroactively to the defendant's earlier conduct. The Court revived a historic category of forbidden ex post facto laws: those that let the government convict with less evidence than was required when the crime was committed. Because the old Texas law demanded both the victim's testimony and corroboration for victims her age, and the new law dropped that corroboration requirement, applying the new version to pre-1993 conduct unconstitutionally reduced the evidence needed to convict.
The Court distinguished this from ordinary rules about who may testify, which can be applied retroactively without constitutional problems. Because Texas's law changed how much evidence was needed rather than just who could testify, four of the defendant's convictions resting solely on uncorroborated testimony could not stand, though his other convictions were unaffected.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Defendants convicted under laws that lowered evidentiary requirements after their alleged crimes occurred now have a clearer constitutional shield. Prosecutors and state legislatures must apply evidence-quantity rules that existed at the time of the offense, not looser rules adopted later, when charging old conduct.
What changes now
The case is sent back to Texas courts, where the four convictions resting solely on the victim's uncorroborated testimony cannot stand under the ex post facto ruling, though the two life-sentence convictions and other unaffected counts remain intact. Texas may still apply its 1993 law going forward to any future prosecutions for conduct occurring after the law's effective date.
What this does not decide
The Court did not disturb the defendant's other 11 convictions, including the two carrying life sentences, which were unaffected by the ex post facto issue. It also did not hold that ordinary evidence-admissibility or witness-competency rules, like the one upheld in Hopt v. Utah, are unconstitutional when applied retroactively.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Ginsburg
“Article 38.07 is not, as the Court would have it, most accurately characterized as a "sufficiency of the evidence rule"; it is in its essence an evidentiary provision dictating the circumstances under which the jury may credit victim testimony”The dissent's central objection that the law is really a witness-credibility rule, not a sufficiency rule.
Justice Ginsburg argued that Article 38.07 is really an evidentiary competency rule, not a sufficiency-of-the-evidence rule, because it merely governs whether the jury may credit a victim's testimony, similar to rules upheld in Hopt v. Utah and Thompson v. Missouri. She contended the majority's reading conflicts with precedent holding that retroactive changes to evidence-admissibility rules are not ex post facto, and that Fenwick's rigid two-witness rule for treason is nothing like Texas's flexible corroboration requirement.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court examined the historical meaning of the constitutional ban on 'ex post facto' laws, relying on Justice Chase's 1798 opinion in Calder v. Bull identifying four categories of forbidden retroactive criminal laws, including laws that let the government convict on less or different evidence than was required when the crime occurred.
- The Court found this fourth category well established by early legal scholars and by the Court's own repeated citations, and rejected the government's argument that the category should be abandoned as historically unsupported.
- Using the 1696 English case of Sir John Fenwick — who was convicted by a special law lowering the number of witnesses needed once a key witness disappeared — as a historical illustration, the Court explained that laws reducing the amount of evidence needed to convict are fundamentally unfair because they let the government change its own rules after the fact to make conviction easier.
- Applying that framework, the Court held that Texas's amended law, which removed the need for corroboration alongside a victim's testimony for victims under 18, reduced the quantum of evidence needed to convict compared to the version in place when the assaults occurred.
- The Court distinguished this sufficiency-of-the-evidence rule from ordinary witness-competency rules like the one in Hopt v. Utah, which merely govern who may testify rather than how much evidence is required to convict, and concluded that Texas's law falls within the historically forbidden fourth category rather than the permissible competency-rule category.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Collins v. Youngblood (497 U. S. 37)
The Court read Collins as eliminating only a 'substantial protections' test, not the fourth ex post facto category, contrary to Texas's argument.
Distinguishes Hopt v. Territory of Utah (110 U. S. 574)
The Court said Hopt's witness-competency rule differs from Texas's sufficiency rule, so Hopt does not control this case.
Reaffirms Cummings v. Missouri (4 Wall. 277)
The Court relied on Cummings as confirming that laws reducing evidence needed to convict fall within the forbidden fourth category.