Supreme Court (6 – 3) Allows Death Row Prisoner’s Bid for DNA Testing to Proceed

On April 19, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (6 – 3) in Reed v. Goertz that a Texas death row pris­on­er could con­tin­ue his pur­suit of DNA test­ing that a low­er court had blocked. The Court held that Rodney Reed’s (pic­tured) civ­il rights claim was filed in fed­er­al court in a timely way. 

The issue in Reed’s case involved when the clock began tick­ing on a two-year lim­it to file a fed­er­al claim once his state appeal was com­plet­ed. Justice Kavanaugh, writ­ing for the six-Justice major­i­ty, held that the time begins to run ​“at the end of the state-court lit­i­ga­tion,” which meant when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) denied Reed’s peti­tion for rehearing.

The major­i­ty opin­ion, which was joined by Justices Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson, not­ed that the rul­ing would avoid plain­tiffs hav­ing simul­ta­ne­ous fed­er­al and state claims for the same action. Justice Thomas argued in dis­sent that the Supreme Court lacked juris­dic­tion over Reed’s claim because it was a state issue. Justice Alito, joined by Justice Gorsuch, argued for an ear­li­er date for the start of the two-year lim­it for filing.

Reed’s case has attract­ed nation­wide atten­tion based on his claim of inno­cence. Reed, a Black man, was sen­tenced to death by an all-white jury in Bastrop, Texas, for the rape and mur­der of a white woman in 1998. Reed asked to have the mur­der weapon and addi­tion­al evi­dence test­ed for DNA, pos­si­bly iden­ti­fy­ing the true mur­der­er. The state court denied his request, and the TCCA denied both his appeal and peti­tion for rehear­ing. An exe­cu­tion date in 2019 was stayed to allow time to con­sid­er his claims. Reed’s legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion includes the Innocence Project, based in New York.