U.S. Supreme Court mulls Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed’s DNA testing bid

WASHINGTON, Oct 11 (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court docket justices on Tuesday wrestled over whether or not Texas loss of life row inmate Rodney Reed was too late in bringing a civil rights lawsuit towards state officers who had rejected his requests for DNA testing of crime-scene proof that he hoped would assist exonerate him in his high-profile homicide case.

The justices heard arguments in Reed’s attraction of a decrease courtroom’s ruling that his August 2019 problem to the procedures required underneath Texas legislation permitting prisoners entry to proof that might endure post-conviction DNA testing got here after the expiration of a two-year statute of limitations.

Prevailing within the civil rights lawsuit may open the door to permitting the DNA testing Reed seeks. Reed has contended that the legislation, as interpreted by Texas state courts, is basically unfair in violation of the U.S. Structure’s assure of due course of.

Reed, who’s Black, was convicted by an all-white jury of the 1996 homicide of a white lady. He has maintained he’s harmless and that DNA proof would assist show it.

The justices throughout Tuesday’s arguments scrutinized Texas Solicitor Basic Judd Stone’s view that Reed ought to have a minimum of filed swimsuit inside two years of an April 2017 state appeals courtroom’s ruling towards him. Reed’s legal professionals stated the clock mustn’t have began on the statute of limitations till after that appeals courtroom denied his demand for a rehearing six months later, in October 2017.

Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch requested Stone in regards to the distinction between these dates.

“Why ought to we favor your view?” Gorsuch requested.

Stone responded, “Rehearing modified nothing in regards to the rights and obligations underneath Texas legislation or the U.S. Structure to Mr. Reed.”

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan pushed again, saying: “That is simply because rehearing was denied. If rehearing had been granted and the choice had been revised, then it might have modified one thing.”

Reed was convicted in 1998 of murdering Stacey Stites, 19, who was discovered raped and strangled along with her personal belt alongside the aspect of a highway in Bastrop County in 1996. Authorities charged Reed after his sperm was discovered contained in the sufferer’s physique. Reed stated that they had been having an affair.

He sought DNA testing of sure crime scene proof together with the belt used to unusual Stites, because the “killer’s fingers could have left sweat or pores and skin cells” on the objects.

Reed’s attorneys and activists have labored to exonerate him, arguing that proof unearthed since his trial factors as an alternative to Stites’ white fiancé, a neighborhood police officer, because the killer.

As varied courts through the years dominated towards Reed’s makes an attempt to have his case re-examined primarily based on what he known as newly found proof, Reed garnered public assist together with from celebrities corresponding to Kim Kardashian and Rihanna. Thousands and thousands of individuals have signed a web based petition supporting Reed.

A trial courtroom in 2014 denied his bid for DNA testing. The Texas Court docket of Prison Appeals additionally rejected it in April 2017 primarily based on the procedures it decided had been required underneath the state legislation that offers prisoners an opportunity to hunt post-conviction DNA testing. That courtroom denied a requirement for rehearing six months later.

Reed sued in federal courtroom in August 2019. The New Orleans-based fifth U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals final yr determined that Reed ought to have filed swimsuit inside two years of the preliminary 2014 trial courtroom choice.

Reporting by Andrew Chung; Modifying by Will Dunham

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