NEWS (2/​24/​20): On February 24, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Texas death-row pris­on­er Rodney Reed’s peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari, declin­ing to review his case. Reed’s peti­tion raised the ques­tion, not yet addressed by the Court, ​“Does the con­vic­tion or exe­cu­tion of a per­son who is actu­al­ly inno­cent of the crime vio­late the United States Constitution?” It also asked the Court to con­sid­er the appro­pri­ate stan­dard for low­er courts to assess: (1) the prej­u­dice from the state’s sup­pres­sion of excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence when a key pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness asserts his Fifth Amendment priv­i­lege against self-incrim­i­na­tion when faced with the sup­pressed evi­dence; and (2) when the pros­e­cu­tion’s pre­sen­ta­tion of sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly invalid expert tes­ti­mo­ny vio­lates due process.

Reed’s peti­tion was filed before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant­ed him a stay of exe­cu­tion and ordered an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on por­tions of his inno­cence claim. The Court had sched­uled the peti­tion for con­fer­ence eight times before ulti­mate­ly denying review. 

In a state­ment con­cern­ing the Court’s action, Justice Sonia Sotomayor stressed that the deci­sion not to hear Reed’s case at this junc­ture ​“does not pass on the mer­its of Reed’s inno­cence or close the door to future review.” ​“It is no triv­ial moment that the Texas courts have con­clud­ed that Reed has pre­sent­ed a sub­stan­tive claim of actu­al inno­cence war­rant­i­ng fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion and devel­op­ment on the mer­its,” she wrote. ​“I remain hope­ful that avail­able state process­es will take care to ensure full and fair con­sid­er­a­tion of Reed’s inno­cence — and will not allow the most per­ma­nent of con­se­quences to weigh on the Nation’s con­science while Reed’s con­vic­tion remains so mired in doubt.”

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Read Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s Statement Respecting the Denial of Certiorari.