Reed v. Goertz
The Supreme Court ruled that a Texas death-row inmate's federal lawsuit challenging the state's DNA testing procedures was filed on time, because the two-year deadline did not begin until the state's appellate courts — including denial of a rehearing request — fully finished with his case.
The decision resolves a split among federal appeals courts and gives prisoners challenging state DNA testing laws a clearer and more generous window to bring federal civil rights suits without having to file simultaneously while still fighting in state court.
How it got here: Texas courts denied Reed's DNA testing request; the federal district court and Fifth Circuit both dismissed his civil rights lawsuit as filed too late; the Supreme Court granted review to resolve a split among federal appeals courts on the timing question.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Rodney Reed, a Texas man on death row for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites, sought post-conviction DNA testing of evidence he said would point to the real killer, including the belt used to strangle the victim. Texas state courts denied his request after multi-year proceedings. Reed then filed a federal civil rights lawsuit arguing that Texas's DNA testing law was unconstitutional because its chain-of-custody requirement effectively barred people convicted before modern evidence-storage rules were in place.
The question before the Court
When a death-row prisoner sues in federal court arguing that a state's DNA testing procedures are unconstitutional, when does the two-year deadline to file that lawsuit begin to run?
The Court's answer
Yes — Reed's lawsuit was filed on time. The Court ruled that the two-year deadline for a federal civil rights challenge to a state's DNA testing procedures does not begin until the state court process has completely finished — here, when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Reed's motion for rehearing.
The key principle is that a procedural due process claim is not legally complete when the deprivation first occurs, but only when the State finishes providing (or ultimately fails to provide) a fair process. Because Texas's DNA testing review includes trial-court proceedings, an appeal, and a motion for rehearing, the alleged failure to afford Reed a fundamentally fair process was not complete until the final appellate step was done. That is when the two-year clock started, making Reed's later federal lawsuit timely.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Convicted prisoners who exhaust state appeals before suing in federal court over DNA testing now have a firmer rule: the two-year filing clock does not start until the state appellate process — including a rehearing denial — is fully over. This prevents prisoners from having to file protective federal lawsuits while still litigating in state court, and gives state appellate courts a full chance to correct any constitutional problems first.
What changes now
Because the Fifth Circuit threw out Reed's lawsuit as untimely, the Supreme Court's reversal sends the case back for the lower courts to address the actual merits — whether Texas's DNA testing procedures genuinely violated due process. The Court did not decide that underlying question. The ruling also does not stay Reed's execution; he conceded at argument that this type of civil rights suit does not automatically halt an execution.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly did not decide whether a prisoner who skips part of the state appellate process — for example, by not appealing at all — could still bring a timely federal challenge. The ruling also does not address whether Texas's DNA testing law actually violates due process; that merits question goes back to the lower courts.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas argued the entire lawsuit should be thrown out for lack of federal court power to hear it — not decided on the timeliness question at all. He contended that Reed's real complaint is about what the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals did in his specific case, which means he is seeking disguised appellate review of a state-court judgment. Federal district courts have no such power, Thomas argued; the only available federal remedy was a petition to the Supreme Court itself (which Reed already filed and lost).
Dissent — Justice Alito
Justice Alito argued that even accepting that Reed could sue at all, his claim accrued — and the clock started — no later than April 2017, when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued its decision interpreting Article 64. A court's decision is authoritative when issued, not when it refuses to reconsider on rehearing. Alito also noted that the majority's reasoning, if taken to its logical end, would imply that a §1983 DNA-testing challenge is not ripe until a prisoner exhausts all state remedies — a rule the Court has previously rejected.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The general rule for when a filing deadline starts is when the plaintiff has a 'complete and present cause of action' — all legal elements needed to sue are in place. To apply that rule here, the Court focused on the specific constitutional right Reed claimed was violated: procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- A procedural due process claim has two required parts: (1) the government deprived someone of a protected interest — like liberty — and (2) the government used inadequate procedures in doing so. Crucially, the Court's prior decision in Zinermon v. Burch established that such a claim is not legally complete when the deprivation happens, but only when the State finishes providing, or definitively fails to provide, a fair process.
- Texas's DNA testing review is not limited to the trial court. It includes an appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and, under Texas appellate rules, a motion for rehearing. Together, those steps constitute the full 'process' the State provides when deciding whether to order DNA testing in a capital case.
- Because the full state process includes the rehearing stage, Reed's claim that Texas denied him a fundamentally fair process was not legally complete until the Court of Criminal Appeals denied rehearing in October 2017 — not when the trial court first ruled and not when the appeals court first ruled before rehearing. That denial is when the two-year filing clock started.
- The Court also pointed to practical policy reasons supporting this conclusion: if the clock started at the trial court's ruling, prisoners would be forced to file federal civil rights lawsuits while still pursuing state appeals, creating wasteful parallel litigation that cuts against federalism and judicial efficiency. Letting the full state process play out first also allows state appellate courts a chance to fix constitutional problems themselves, potentially making a federal lawsuit unnecessary.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Zinermon v. Burch (494 U.S. 113)
A procedural due process claim is complete only when the State fails to provide fair process, not when the deprivation first occurs.
Reaffirms McDonough v. Smith (588 U.S. ___)
When determining accrual of a §1983 claim, courts must focus first on the specific constitutional right alleged to be infringed.