# Reed v. Goertz

Note: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
REED v. GOERTZ CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT No. 21–442. Argued October 11, 2022—Decided April 19, 2023
A Texas jury found petitioner Rodney Reed guilty of the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Reed’s conviction and death sentence. In 2014, Reed filed a motion in Texas state court under Texas’s post-conviction DNA testing law. Reed requested DNA testing on certain evidence, including the belt used to strangle Stites, which Reed contended would help identify the true perpetrator. The state trial court denied Reed’s motion, reasoning in part that items Reed sought to test were not preserved through an adequate chain of custody. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, and later denied Reed’s motion for rehearing. Reed then sued in federal court under 42 U. S. C. §1983, asserting that Texas’s post-conviction DNA testing law failed to provide procedural due process. Reed argued that the law’s stringent chain-of-custody requirement was unconstitutional. The District Court dismissed Reed’s complaint. The Fifth Circuit affirmed on the ground that Reed’s §1983 claim was filed too late, after the applicable 2-year statute of limitations had run. The Fifth Circuit held that the limitations period began to run when the Texas trial court denied Reed’s motion, not when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied rehearing.
Held: When a prisoner pursues state post-conviction DNA testing through the state-provided litigation process, the statute of limitations for a §1983 procedural due process claim begins to run when the state litigation ends, in this case when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Reed’s motion for rehearing. Pp. 3–6.
(b) The sole question before the Court is whether Reed’s §1983 suit raising a procedural due process challenge to Texas’s post-conviction DNA testing law was timely under the applicable 2-year statute of limitations. The statute of limitations begins to run when the plaintiff has a “complete and present cause of action,” Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 522 U. S. 192, 201, a determination the Court makes by focusing first on the specific constitutional right alleged to have been infringed. See McDonough v. Smith, 588 U. S. ___, ___. Here, that right is procedural due process. A procedural due process claim is complete not “when the deprivation occurs” but only when “the State fails to provide due process.” Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U. S. 113, 126. Texas’s process for considering a request for DNA testing in capital cases includes both trial court proceedings and appellate review, which under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 79.1 encompasses a motion for rehearing. In Reed’s case, the State’s alleged failure to provide Reed with a fundamentally fair process was complete when the state litigation ended—when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Reed’s motion for rehearing. Therefore, the statute of limitations began to run on Reed’s §1983 claim when Reed’s motion for rehearing was denied. Pp. 4–6.
995 F. 3d 425, reversed.
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