Rule 601. General rule of competency

General rule of competency. Every person is competent to be a witness except as otherwise provided in these rules.

Committee Notes

Advisory Committee’s Notes, as Amended February 3, 1998 The starting point for applying Rule 601 is that all witnesses are competent except as otherwise provided under other Alabama Rules of Evidence. This rule is identical to Unif.R.Evid. 601 and to the first sentence of the corresponding Federal Rule of Evidence. It acknowledges the prevailing sentiment that very few persons are incapable of giving testimony useful to the trier of fact and that historic grounds of incompetency – mental incapacity, conviction, etc. – should go to the credibility of the witness and the weight the trier of fact gives to the witness’s testimony. See H. Weihofen, Testimonial Competence and Credibility, 34 Geo.Wash.L.Rev. 53 (1965); E. Cleary, McCormick on Evidence § 71 (3d ed. 1984) (referring to rules of incompetency as “serious obstructions to the ascertainment of truth”); C. Mueller & L. Kirkpatrick, 3 Federal Evidence § 232 (2d ed. 1994); Comment, The Mentally Deficient Witness: The Death of Incompetency, 14 Law & Psychol. Rev. 106 (1990). This move away from grounds of absolute incompetency is consistent with developments in Alabama practice over the past several decades. Spouses, once declared incompetent to be witnesses for or against each other, are now competent to take the witness stand but are not permitted, over objection, to divulge confidential husband-wife communications. See, e.g., Arnold v. State, 353 So.2d 527 (Ala.1977); Trammel v. United States, 445 U.S. 40 (1980) (holding that one spouse is competent to testify against the other in a criminal case but cannot be compelled to do so); Recent Decision, Privilege Regarding Non- confidential Marital Testimony Is Vested Only in Witness Spouse; Trammel v. United States, 11 Cumb.L.Rev. 465 (1980); Ala.Code 1975, § 12-21-227 (providing that the husband and wife may testify either for or against the other in criminal cases but shall not be compelled to do so). Those convicted of crimes involving moral turpitude, once rendered