The Supreme Court cleared the way on Wednesday for Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed to seek post-conviction DNA evidence to try to prove his innocence.
Reed claims an all-White jury wrongly convicted him of killing of Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old White woman, in Texas in 1998.
Texas had argued that he had waited too long to bring his challenge to the state’s DNA procedures in federal court, but the Supreme Court disagreed. Now, he can go to a federal court to make his claim.
The ruling was 6-3. Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the court and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Since Reed’s conviction, Texas courts had rejected his various appeals. Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Rihanna have expressed support, signing a petition asking the state to halt his eventual execution.
The case puts a new focus on the testing of DNA crime-scene evidence and when an inmate can make a claim to access the technology in a plea of innocence. To date, 375 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 21 who served time on death row, according to the Innocence Project, a group that represents Reed and other clients seeking post-conviction DNA testing to prove their innocence.
Kavanaugh, in his opinion Wednesday, said that the court agreed to hear the case because federal appeals courts have disagreed about when inmates can make such claims without running afoul of the statute of limitations. Kavanaugh said Reed could make the claim after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ultimately denied his request for rehearing, rejecting an earlier date set out by the appeals court.
“Significant systemic benefits ensue from starting the statute of limitations clock when the state litigation in DNA…
Read the full article here