The 6-3 decision, with one dissent by Justice Clarence Thomas and another dissent by Justice Samuel Alito that was joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, came in the case of Rodney Reed, a Texas death row prisoner convicted of murder in 1998. Beginning in 2014, Reed requested DNA testing of several items found at the crime scene, but his request was denied.
Reed's next step was to file a due process claim in federal court, called a "Section 1983" suit, which he did in August 2019. But the Fifth Circuit said in April 2021 that the suit was filed too late. Reed had waited until his state court appeals were exhausted rather than filing after the very first denial of testing, in November 2014.
The high court's decision resolved a circuit split. The Fifth and Seventh circuits have decided the Section 1983 clock begins running when a state court denies testing, while the Eleventh Circuit said the clock starts only after state court litigation on the denial of DNA testing, including all appeals, has ended.
"A procedural due process claim 'is not complete when the deprivation occurs.' Rather, the claim is 'complete' only when 'the state fails to provide due process,'" the court wrote, quoting the 1990 decision Zinermon v. Burch
."In Reed's case, the state's alleged failure to provide Reed with a fundamentally fair process was complete when the state litigation ended and deprived Reed of his asserted liberty interest in DNA testing. Therefore, Reed's §1983 claim was complete and the statute of limitations began to run when the state litigation ended — when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Reed's motion for rehearing," the court added.
The opinion called the conclusion "straightforward."
Justice Thomas said in his dissent that Reed lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because the Supreme Court can't review state-court decisions.
Justice Alito, joined by Justice Gorsuch, said Reed's two-year statute of limitations "clearly" began running earlier than the Texas appeals court's rehearing.
Parker Rider-Longmaid, who argued Reed's case before the Supreme Court, said in a statement Wednesday, "We are grateful that the court has kept the courthouse doors open to Mr. Reed, a Black man who has spent 24 years on death row for the murder of a white woman with whom he was having an affair, a crime he has steadfastly maintained he did not commit. As Mr. Reed's briefs explain, extensive evidence developed in post-conviction proceedings both points to Mr. Reed's innocence and implicates the victim's fiancé."
A representative for the Texas officials was not immediately available for comment.
When the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the testing denial to Reed in April 2017, Reed's lawyers said the court added new, unconstitutional requirements to Texas' DNA-testing law, known as Chapter 64.
Reed, a Black man, was convicted in 1998 by an all-white jury of the rape and murder of a white woman, Stacey Stites, with whom he claims he was having a consensual relationship. He has been on death row ever since.
Reed has continued to profess his innocence. Crucial evidence, including pieces of a belt used to strangle Stites and ropes in another suspect's truck, were never tested, according to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Prosecutors are alleged to have lied to the jury about the relationship between Reed and Stites.
Reed's execution was stayed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2019 for an evidentiary hearing on the question of actual innocence.
At the time of her death, Stites, who worked at a grocery store, was engaged to a white police officer, Jimmy Fennell. Throughout his career, Fennell had drawn complaints of violence, according to the Texas federal district court's summary. He was later convicted and served 10 years in prison for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman while on duty. After Stites was murdered, Fennell was among the suspects for over a year, and at Reed's trial, "the defense attempted to show that someone else, possibly … Fennell, had committed the offense," according to the Texas federal district court.
Technicians recovered traces of sperm from Stites that matched Reed's DNA. Reed told investigators he was having a relationship with Stites. At trial, Reed said he last had sex with Stites — and had last seen her — two days before she was killed.
Prosecutors brought expert testimony that sperm remains intact for no more than 26 hours. And they claimed to the jury that Reed and Stites did not know each other.
The stay of Reed's execution was followed by a July 2021 evidentiary hearing that brought out testimony that sperm can survive intact for days.
Reed's lawyers also uncovered contemporaneous statements by Stites' colleagues to police asserting they knew each other. One coworker said she saw Reed and Stites being intimate and flirting.
Amicus briefs were filed for Reed by a group of eight retired judges that includes a former judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Others supporting Reed include the NAACP, the National Police Accountability Project, two Texas exonerees focusing on the "substantial" non-DNA evidence of Reed's innocence, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and a former DNA analyst and trainer in the Texas Department of Public Safety, among others.
"In cases like Mr. Reed's, where racial bias or other arbitrary factors undermine the reliability of a conviction, DNA evidence is a critical means of remedying wrongful convictions," the NAACP said in its brief.
Reed wants testing of items including "the uncontested murder weapon," Stites' belt, the NAACP brief added. "Mr. Reed seeks an opportunity to show that the state procedures that have denied him access to that evidence are inconsistent with basic principles of due process."
An amicus brief was filed for Goertz by a group of nine states, led by Montana and also including South Carolina, Alabama and Louisiana.
They argue states are protected by sovereign immunity in cases like this. "Goertz is an agent of the State of Texas acting in a prosecutorial role," they said, and Reed's suit is therefore in reality against the state of Texas. Reed, they said, "completely fails to show that Goertz committed or had a sufficient connection to this alleged constitutional violation."
Reed is represented by Barry Scheck and Jane Pucher of The Innocence Project and Cliff Gardner, Michelle Davis, Gregory Ranzini, Parker Rider-Longmaid, Kyser Blakely, Hanaa Khan and Peyton Carper of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.
The Texas officials named as defendants in the suit are represented by Judd Stone II of the Texas Attorney General's Office.
The case is Reed v. Goertz et al., case number 21-442, in the Supreme Court of the United States.
--Editing by Alyssa Miller.
Update: This story has been updated with a comment from counsel for Reed and with additional counsel information.
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