34 EVIDENCE. [ART. 37.
ARTICLE XXXVII.

Evidence

COMPETENCY OF WITNESSES.

Chapter 109 repeals the sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and enacts the following sections as a
substitute for the same:

SEC. 1. No person offered as a witness shall hereafter be ex-
cluded by reason of incapacity from crime or interest, from giv-
ing evidence, either in person or by deposition, according to the
practice of the courts, in the trial of any issue joined or hereafter to
be joined, or of any matter or question, or on any inquiry arising
in any suit, action or proceeding, civil or criminal, in any court,
or before any judge, jury, justice of peace or other person hav-
ing, by law or by consent of parties, authority to hear, receive
and examine evidence; but that every person so offered may and
shall be admitted to give evidence, notwithstanding that such
person may or shall have an interest in the matter in question,
or in the event of the trial of any issue, matter, question or
inquiry, or of the suit, action or proceeding in which he is
offering as a witness, and notwithstanding that such person
offered as a witness may have been previously convicted of any
crime or offence; but no person who has been convicted of the
crime of perjury shall be admitted to testify in any case or
proceeding whatever, and the parties litigant, and all persons in
whose behalf any suit, action or other proceeding may be
brought or defended, themselves and their wives and husbands
shall be competent and compellable to give evidence in the
same manner as other witnesses, except as hereinafter excepted.

2. When an original party to a contract or cause of action is
dead, or shown to be lunatic or insane, or when an executor or
administrator is a party to the suit, action or other proceeding,
the other party may be called as a witness by his opponent, but
shall not be admitted to testify on his own offer or upon the
call of his co-plaintiff or co-defendant otherwise than now by
law allowed, unless a nominal party merely.