AUSTIN, Texas — A lawyer for Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed argued before the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday to revive a lawsuit that could force DNA testing of crime scene evidence as Reed pursues his innocence claim.
According to KVUE's news partners at the Austin American-Statesman, the Supreme Court was tasked with figuring out when Texas' two-year statute of limitations on pursuing federal civil rights claims starts. Is it when the trial court issues a ruling on DNA testing or when all appeals are finally decided?
Reed's lawyers argued before the high court that it makes little sense to adopt the State's assumption that the time begins when a trial court denies testing, as that rule could be changed on appeal.
Meanwhile, per the report, a solicitor general for the Texas Attorney General's Office said Reed claims his constitutional rights were violated when he was denied DNA testing in 2016 when a Bastrop trial judge ruled against the request. That was the moment the statute of limitations started, which had expired by the time Reed's federal civil rights lawsuit was filed in August 2019, the solicitor general argued.
Reed's lawyers countered that the deadline should have started in October 2017 when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued its final ruling against the request, according to the Statesman report.
The case goes back to Reed's request that DNA tests be conducted on a belt that he is accused of using to strangle Stacey Stites in 1996, in an effort to maintain his innocence in the case. He also wants other evidence found at the scene of the crime tested for DNA because his attorneys say tests were never done on the items.
In 1998, Reed was convicted of the 1996 abduction, rape and murder of 19-year-old Stites.
Days before Reed was set to be executed in 2019, he was granted a stay. Last year, a judge recommended that the Court of Criminal Appeals deny granting Reed a new trial.
A ruling from the Supreme Court is expected by the end of June.
Read the full report from the Austin American-Statesman.
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