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 to sue did not begin until the state's entire appeals process — including the denial of a rehearing request — was finished.
The decision resolves a split among federal appeals courts and means that prisoners who pursue every step of the state review process available to them will not lose their right to challenge the fairness of that process in federal court simply because the clock started ticking before the state courts were done.
How it got here: A federal district court dismissed Reed's lawsuit on the merits; the Fifth Circuit affirmed on timeliness grounds, creating a conflict with the Eleventh Circuit; the Supreme Court agreed to resolve that circuit split.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Rodney Reed was convicted of a 1996 Texas murder and sentenced to death. Maintaining his innocence, he sought post-conviction DNA testing in 2014 of more than 40 pieces of evidence — including the belt used to strangle the victim — arguing the results would identify the real killer. The state prosecutor agreed to test only some items, and the trial court denied the rest. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed and later denied rehearing. Reed then filed a federal civil rights lawsuit arguing Texas's DNA testing procedures were unconstitutionally unfair.
The question before the Court
When a death-row prisoner challenges the fairness of a state's DNA testing process in federal court, does the two-year deadline to file that lawsuit start when the trial court first denies DNA testing, or only when the entire state appeals process — including a rehearing request — has ended?
The Court's answer
Yes — Reed's federal lawsuit was filed on time. The two-year deadline did not begin until the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied his rehearing request, because that is when the state's full process for reconsidering his DNA testing request was complete. A procedural due process claim — the kind Reed brought — is not a finished legal claim at the moment the government first denies something; it only becomes complete when the government's entire process has run its course and still failed to provide a fair result.
Because Texas law gave Reed the right to appeal the trial court's denial to the Court of Criminal Appeals and then to seek rehearing there, all of those steps were part of "the process" the Due Process Clause required the State to provide. Reed filed his federal lawsuit within two years after rehearing was denied, so his claim was timely. Requiring the clock to start earlier — at the trial court's denial — would have forced Reed to simultaneously pursue a state appeal and file a protective federal lawsuit, creating unnecessary parallel litigation that wastes judicial resources and disrespects the role of state courts.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Prisoners seeking DNA testing in states with post-conviction review laws now have a clearer and more workable deadline: the two-year federal filing window does not open until the state court process fully closes. Without this rule, prisoners would face pressure to simultaneously appeal in state court and file a protective federal lawsuit — a costly and duplicative burden that the Court said undermines basic principles of how state and federal courts should work together.
What changes now
The case is sent back to the lower courts with the ruling that Reed's lawsuit was timely. The merits question — whether Texas's post-conviction DNA testing procedures actually violated due process — has not been decided and remains to be litigated. Reed separately acknowledged at oral argument that a pending DNA lawsuit does not automatically stop an execution, so Texas may still pursue his sentence while the federal case proceeds. The decision does not guarantee Reed will ultimately obtain the DNA testing he seeks.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly reserved whether a prisoner who skips part of the state appeals process — forgoing a full appeal before filing a federal lawsuit — must first exhaust state remedies. That question remains open, and lower courts will need to work it out case by case under the framework the Court laid out here.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas argued the entire lawsuit should have been thrown out for lack of federal court power to hear it. In his view, every alleged due process violation Reed described was caused by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, not the district attorney who was named as the defendant. Suing the district attorney as a stand-in to challenge what the state court did is really just asking a federal district court to review a state court decision — something only the Supreme Court can do on appeal. Thomas would have dismissed Reed's complaint entirely without reaching the timeliness question.
Dissent — Justice Alito
Justice Alito agreed the lawsuit was filed too late, but disagreed with Thomas about jurisdiction. In Alito's view, Reed's claim accrued no later than April 2017, when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued its decision — not in October 2017 when it denied rehearing. A court's ruling is authoritative the moment it is issued; a pending rehearing petition does not suspend that authority. Because Reed filed his federal suit more than two years after the April 2017 decision, his case was time-barred regardless of whether the claim could have accrued even earlier.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The central question was one of federal law: when does the two-year statute of limitations for Reed's civil rights lawsuit (brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the main federal law for suing state officials over constitutional violations) begin to run? The Court applied the general rule that the clock starts when a plaintiff has a 'complete and present cause of action' — meaning all the legal ingredients needed to sue are in place.
- To determine when those ingredients were all present, the Court focused on the specific constitutional right Reed claimed was violated: procedural due process, meaning the right to a fundamentally fair government process before being deprived of a liberty interest. A procedural due process claim has two required parts — a deprivation of a protected interest AND inadequate government process — and the Court stressed that this kind of claim is not complete 'when the deprivation occurs,' but only 'when the State fails to provide due process.'
- Texas's post-conviction DNA testing law gave Reed access to both a trial court and appellate review by the Court of Criminal Appeals, which under Texas's own rules of appellate procedure includes a motion for rehearing. All of these steps were part of the 'process' the State made available to prisoners seeking DNA testing in capital cases.
- Because every step of the state process — trial court, appeal, and rehearing — had to run its course before the State could be said to have definitively failed to provide Reed with a fair process, Reed's claim was not 'complete' until the Court of Criminal Appeals denied his rehearing motion in October 2017. That is when the two-year clock started.
- The Court reinforced this conclusion by pointing to the practical problems a different rule would create: if the clock started at the trial court's denial, prisoners would be forced to simultaneously pursue state appeals and file protective federal lawsuits, producing duplicative litigation that runs against federalism (respecting the state courts' role), comity (maintaining good working relations between state and federal courts), and judicial economy (avoiding wasted effort). Allowing the state appellate process to run first also gives state courts a chance to correct any due process flaws before a federal suit becomes necessary.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Skinner v. Switzer (562 U.S. 521)
Federal district courts may hear § 1983 challenges to state DNA testing statutes without running afoul of Rooker-Feldman.
Reaffirms Zinermon v. Burch (494 U.S. 113)
A procedural due process claim is complete only when the State fails to provide due process, not at the moment of deprivation.