With their questions during oral arguments in Reed v. Goertz, a case involving a Texas death row prisoner who was denied access to DNA testing of crime scene evidence that could prove his innocence, the justices hinted that they might reject the rule, which is currently law in the Fifth and Seventh circuits.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor appeared ready to adopt a view embraced by the Eleventh Circuit under which the clock starts ticking only after state court litigation on the denial of DNA testing, including all appeals, has concluded. The rationale that makes the rule better law, Justice Sotomayor said, is that a court could modify a judgment on rehearing.
Rodney Reed, a Black man, was convicted in 1998 by an all-white jury of the rape and murder of a 19-year-old white woman with whom he claims he was having an affair. Reed has continued to profess his innocence. Crucial crime scene evidence, including pieces of a belt used to strangle the woman, Stacey Stites, were never tested for DNA.
Beginning in 2014, Reed requested DNA testing of several items found at the crime scene, but was denied under state law. Respondent Bryan Goertz, the local district attorney, has continued to object to the testing.
The U.S. Supreme Court held in 2011 in Skinner v. Switzer
that state prisoners seeking DNA testing to challenge their convictions must do so by filing suits under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code. The prisoners must show the state violated their due process rights after seeking DNA testing under state law.In Reed v. Goertz, the justices are deciding when the statute of limitations for that type of suit begins to run. It is a matter of life or death for Reed, 54, who has spent 24 years on death row and whose execution was indefinitely stayed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in light of evidence that casts doubts on his guilt. The stakes of the case are also high for others: The ruling could dramatically reduce the chances of state prisoners to request potentially exonerating DNA testing.
The arguments touched on whether federal law and precedent requires prisoners to exhaust all of their legal avenues in state court before filing under Section 1983 in federal court.
"Can you bring suit on a claim before the claim accrues?" Justice Samuel Alito asked Parker Andrew Rider-Longmaid of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP, who represents Reed.
"Your Honor, I think you can," Rider-Longmaid replied, pointing out the high court made clear in its 2007 decision Wallace v. Kato
that a person can file a false imprisonment lawsuit under the Fourth Amendment at the moment they're falsely arrested.Justice Alito did not follow up with a question, a possible sign that he is open to the idea of permitting prisoners to bring claims before state proceedings have concluded.
If the high court adopts that view, a prisoner will have more time to file a suit seeking DNA testing, because the statute of limitations will begin only after state proceedings have run their course. At the same time, prisoners would be able to ditch start court proceedings to file civil suits in federal court before they ended.
But Chief Justice John Roberts forcefully pushed back to that notion.
"You want to have your cake and eat it too," he told Rider-Longmaid.
Justice Elena Kagan also appeared doubtful, suggesting it would be more practical to allow prisoners to file suits only after state proceedings have concluded.
"Isn't ... the simplest thing, just to say the person isn't harmed until the state process has come to an end, and we know for a fact what the state judgment is?" she asked Rider-Longmaid. "Maybe ... the cause of action is complete at the same time that the statute of limitations starts running."
During the argument, the justices were presented with two competing views of federalism, which could ultimately create a split in the court.
Rider-Longmaid told the justices the Fifth and Seventh circuit rule undermines the deference typically given to state courts because it makes the federal statute of limitations begin before state proceedings are completely concluded.
"It just disrespects the state courts appellate process," he said.
But arguing on behalf of Texas, Judd Edward Stone II of the state's attorney general's office said the rule the two circuits follow protect states' interests because it gives states faster knowledge of the claims that are filed against it.
"States are best served by having defined dates that are not manipulable by individuals who are seeking to extend the length of their claims, as long as possible," Stone said.
On Aug. 8, 2019, Reed filed a civil rights suit in federal court arguing the state court's denial of DNA testing violated his rights to due process, but the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas dismissed the complaint saying state courts were correct in applying the law. In April of this year, the Fifth Circuit upheld the ruling and said Reed's suit was untimely because it was filed more than two years after the state trial court originally declined to order testing.
During the time he spent in prison, Reed sought unsuccessfully to vacate his conviction in light of new evidence he said proves his innocence.
At the time of her death, Stites was engaged to Jimmy Fennell, a white police officer who throughout his career has been the subject of civil complaints accusing him of being violent. He was also convicted and served 10 years in prison for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman while on duty.
Following Stites' killing, Fennell was among the initial suspects. But the investigation in the case took a turn about a year after the murder, when forensics recovered traces of sperm from the victim's vagina that matched Reed's DNA.
Reed told investigators he was having an ongoing sexual relationship with Stites, who worked at a grocery store in Bastrop, Texas. At trial, Reed said he last had sex with Stities two days before she was killed, and that that was the last time he saw her.
Prosecutors challenged that defense with forensic testimony that said sperm only remains intact for about 24 hours, and that Reed had lied. They also told the jury Reed and Stites did not know each other.
More than two decades after his conviction, on Nov. 15, 2019, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Reed's execution five days before he was scheduled to die. The court pointed to newly presented evidence that blew holes in the prosecution's case and remanded the case to the 21st Judicial District Court in Bastrop County for an evidentiary hearing.
At the hearing, held in July 2021, experts called by Reed's attorneys testified that sperm can survive intact for days, casting the forensics used in his conviction as false. Reed's lawyers also uncovered statements Stites' colleagues made to the police before trial that indicated they knew each other. One of the coworkers said she saw Reed and Stites being intimate and flirting at her workplace. Prosecutors never disclosed those statements to Reed's counsel and the jury never heard of them.
But Texas state courts denied Reed's bids to vacate his conviction or get a new trial.
Jane Pucher, an attorney with The Innocence Project, representing Reed, said in a statement to reporters Tuesday afternoon that he should be given a new trial where all the exculpating evidence can be presented.
"We are grateful that the U.S. Supreme Court is addressing the question of DNA testing in Rodney Reed's case. We also believe it is important to recognize that for 23 years, prosecutors illegally hid evidence that could have exonerated Mr. Reed," Pucher said. "Withholding evidence is a constitutional violation which requires Mr. Reed's conviction and death sentence to be overturned"
Reed is represented by Barry C. Scheck and Jane Pucher of The Innocence Project and Cliff C. Gardner, Michelle L. Davis, Shaivlini Khemka, Gregory P. Ranzini, Parker Rider-Longmaid and Peyton V. Carper of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.
The Texas officials named as defendants in the suit are represented by Judd Edward Stone II of the Texas Attorney General's Office.
The case is Reed v. Goertz et al., case number 21-442, in the U.S. Supreme Court.
--Editing by Andrew Cohen.