District Attorney's Office for the Third Judicial District v. Osborne
The Supreme Court ruled that convicted people do not have a general constitutional right under the Due Process Clause to demand access to the government's evidence for new DNA testing after their conviction becomes final.
The decision leaves the job of setting rules for postconviction DNA testing mainly to state legislatures and Congress, which had already passed laws in nearly every state, rather than having federal courts invent a new constitutional right of access.
“There is no reason to constitutionalize the issue in this way.”
The Court's core reason for rejecting a new constitutional right to postconviction DNA testing.
How it got here: A federal district court granted Osborne summary judgment on his DNA-access claim, the Ninth Circuit affirmed, and the state prosecutors asked the Supreme Court to reverse.
The Case in Depth
What happened
William Osborne was convicted of a brutal 1993 kidnapping, sexual assault, and near-fatal shooting of a woman in Anchorage, Alaska. Years later, he sued state prosecutors under a federal civil rights statute, arguing he had a constitutional right to test crime-scene evidence with newer, more precise DNA technology at his own expense, hoping the results would prove his innocence.
The question before the Court
Does a person convicted of a crime have a constitutional right to get access to the government's evidence for new DNA testing after the trial is over?
The Court's answer
No — the Court ruled that Osborne, and convicted prisoners generally, do not have a freestanding constitutional right under the Due Process Clause to demand access to the state's evidence for new DNA testing after conviction. Osborne did have a limited liberty interest tied to Alaska's own postconviction relief statute, but the Court found nothing fundamentally unfair about Alaska's existing procedures for pursuing that interest, even though Osborne had never actually tried using them for the newer testing he sought.
Separately, the Court declined to recognize a broader, freestanding substantive due process right to DNA evidence untethered from any state-created interest, reasoning that such a claim was historically unrooted and that recognizing it now would short-circuit the rapid legislative response already underway in nearly every state and in Congress.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
People trying to prove their innocence with newer, more precise DNA technology must rely on state and federal statutes and existing postconviction procedures, not a broad federal constitutional lawsuit, to get access to evidence. States keep the flexibility to set their own conditions on such requests, like innocence affidavits or diligence rules, without fear that federal courts will override them.
What changes now
The judgment for Osborne was reversed and the case sent back for further proceedings, meaning his federal lawsuit forcing DNA testing failed. He remains free to pursue testing under Alaska's postconviction statute or other state remedies, but the ruling forecloses any freestanding federal constitutional right to demand such testing. This is a final merits decision on the constitutional question, leaving state-by-state legislative solutions in place.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether a broader federal constitutional right to release upon proof of actual innocence exists, or whether Heck v. Humphrey bars this kind of lawsuit; it assumed those points without ruling on them. It also left undisturbed existing state and federal statutes that set specific conditions on DNA access.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Alito
Justice Alito agreed with the result but argued the claim should have been required to go through habeas corpus rather than a civil rights suit, since it functioned as a request for discovery bearing directly on guilt. He also argued a defendant who tactically declined more precise DNA testing at trial has no later constitutional right to demand it, calling this an attempt to game the system.
Dissent — Justice Stevens
“On two equally problematic grounds, the Court today blesses the State’s arbitrary denial of the evidence Osborne seeks.”Stevens's central objection to the majority's reasoning and outcome.
Justice Stevens argued Osborne had a due process right to the evidence, both because Alaska's own procedures were applied unfairly to deny him access despite meeting their conditions, and because a freestanding substantive due process right protects prisoners from arbitrary denial of testing that could conclusively prove innocence or guilt. He would have affirmed the Ninth Circuit and let Osborne test the evidence.
Dissent — Justice Souter
Justice Souter dissented on narrower procedural grounds, agreeing that Alaska's stated conditions for access were reasonable on their face but concluding the state had applied them so inconsistently and unfairly to Osborne that it violated due process. He declined to reach the broader question of whether a freestanding substantive right to DNA testing should be recognized.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first considered whether Osborne could even bring this claim as a civil rights lawsuit rather than through habeas corpus, but assumed without deciding that he could, since the outcome would be the same either way.
- Turning to due process, the Court explained it first had to identify what protected 'liberty interest' Osborne was trying to vindicate, since procedural protections are only required to safeguard a recognized interest.
- The Court found Osborne had a limited liberty interest rooted in Alaska's own postconviction relief statute, but rejected the lower court's approach of importing the pretrial evidence-disclosure duty from Brady v. Maryland into the postconviction setting, reasoning that a convicted person's presumption of innocence disappears after a fair trial.
- Applying the more flexible fundamental-fairness test from Medina v. California, the Court asked only whether Alaska's postconviction procedures were so inadequate that they violated basic notions of fairness, not whether they matched pretrial disclosure rules.
- Because Alaska's statute allowed discovery of new, diligently pursued, material evidence of innocence, and Osborne had never even tried that process for the newer STR testing he now sought, the Court concluded the state's procedures were not fundamentally unfair on their face.
- On Osborne's separate request for a freestanding substantive due process right to DNA evidence, the Court applied its general reluctance to recognize new, historically unrooted rights, citing the novelty of the claim and the risk of cutting off the legislative response already underway in nearly every state and Congress.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Limits Brady v. Maryland (373 U. S. 83)
The Court held Brady's pretrial duty to disclose favorable evidence does not extend to postconviction requests for DNA testing.