Reed v. Goertz
The Supreme Court ruled that a Texas death-row prisoner's federal lawsuit challenging the fairness of the state's DNA testing rules was filed on time, holding that the two-year deadline to sue doesn't begin until the entire state appeals process — including any motion for rehearing — has concluded.
The decision prevents prisoners from being forced to file protective federal lawsuits while state appeals are still ongoing, avoiding simultaneous parallel litigation in two court systems over the same dispute.
How it got here: Texas trial and appellate courts denied Reed's DNA testing request; he filed a federal civil rights lawsuit; the district court dismissed; the Fifth Circuit affirmed as untimely; the Supreme Court took the case to resolve a conflict among federal appeals courts and reversed.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Rodney Reed was convicted and sentenced to death in Texas for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites. In 2014, Reed asked Texas courts to order DNA testing of more than 40 pieces of evidence — including the belt used to strangle Stites — arguing the results would identify the real killer. Texas courts denied the request. Reed then sued in federal court, arguing that Texas's DNA testing law was so restrictive that it violated his constitutional right to a fair process.
The question before the Court
Does the two-year clock to sue over an unfair state DNA-testing process start when a trial court first denies the request, or only after the full state appeals process — including a motion for rehearing — is finished?
The Court's answer
Yes — the two-year clock didn't start until the state appeals process was completely over. A procedural due process claim — the constitutional guarantee that the government must provide a fair process before taking away something important — isn't finished until the State has completed (or failed to complete) that process. Texas's DNA testing law provides for trial court proceedings, an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals, and a motion for rehearing; all of that is part of the State's process. Reed's claim wasn't complete until the Court of Criminal Appeals denied his rehearing request in October 2017, so his federal lawsuit filed in August 2019 was within the two-year window.
The Court also pointed to practical reasons for this rule. If the clock started at the trial court level, prisoners would have to file protective federal lawsuits while state appeals were still pending — creating duplicative litigation running in two court systems at once, which undermines federalism, comity, and judicial efficiency. Letting the state process finish first also gives state courts the chance to cure any constitutional problems themselves, potentially making a federal lawsuit unnecessary.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Convicted prisoners who want to challenge the fairness of a state's DNA testing procedures in federal court now know they can wait until every level of the state process — including rehearing — is finished before the two-year filing clock starts. This lets them focus on state appeals first rather than juggling simultaneous federal and state litigation while still hoping the state process might fix the problem on its own.
What changes now
The case returns to the lower federal courts, where Reed's constitutional challenge to Texas's DNA testing procedures will be decided on its merits. The Supreme Court resolved only the timing question — it did not decide whether Texas's procedures actually violate due process or whether Reed will obtain the DNA testing he seeks. The Court also explicitly left open the separate question of whether a prisoner who skips some or all state appeals could still bring a timely federal challenge.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Texas's DNA testing law is actually unconstitutional or whether Reed is entitled to the testing he wants. It also left open whether a prisoner who does not fully pursue state appellate review — including rehearing — can still bring a timely §1983 challenge, noting that question as reserved for another day.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas would have dismissed the case entirely for lack of federal court jurisdiction, without reaching the timeliness question. He argued that Reed's real complaint is about what the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals did in his specific case — making his injury traceable to that court, not the district attorney. Redressing that injury would require the district court to exercise appellate review over a state court, which federal district courts are flatly prohibited from doing. In Thomas's view, Reed's §1983 complaint is his failed certiorari petition in disguise.
Dissent — Justice Alito
Justice Alito agreed the Fifth Circuit's rule (clock starts at the trial court) was likely too early, but argued the majority went too far in the other direction. An appellate court's decision is authoritative when issued, not when rehearing is denied — just as the Supreme Court's own practice of immediately acting on newly decided cases shows. Reed's claim accrued no later than April 2017 when the Court of Criminal Appeals issued its opinion, more than two years before his lawsuit, making his complaint untimely. Alito faulted Reed for waiting until an execution date was set to file.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The statute of limitations for a §1983 claim — a federal lawsuit against a state official for violating constitutional rights — begins to run when the plaintiff has a 'complete and present cause of action.' Determining when that is requires looking first at the specific constitutional right being asserted.
- The right at issue is procedural due process, which has two parts: (1) the government must have deprived the person of a protected interest in life, liberty, or property, AND (2) the State's process for doing so must have been inadequate. The Court drew on its earlier decision in Zinermon v. Burch, which established that a procedural due process claim is not complete 'when the deprivation occurs,' but only when 'the State fails to provide due process.'
- Because the claim is about the adequacy of the State's process — not just any single decision within it — the Court reasoned that the claim isn't complete until that process has fully played out. Texas's DNA testing law for capital cases includes trial court proceedings, an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals, and under longstanding Texas court rules, a motion for rehearing. All of these steps are part of the State's official process.
- Applying that framework, Reed's claim that the state process was fundamentally unfair was not complete until the process ended — when the Court of Criminal Appeals denied his motion for rehearing in October 2017. That is when the two-year statute of limitations began to run, making his August 2019 federal complaint timely.
- The Court reinforced this conclusion by examining what would follow from the opposite rule. If the clock started when the trial court denied the request, prisoners would have to file protective federal lawsuits while state appeals were still pending — creating parallel proceedings in state and federal court at the same time. The Court found this would contradict core principles of federalism, comity, and judicial efficiency, and saw no good reason to require it.
- The Court also noted systemic benefits of waiting until state litigation concludes: the state appeals court may fix any due process problems itself (making a federal lawsuit unnecessary), and its construction of the state DNA testing statute will sharpen and focus any subsequent federal proceedings.