The Supreme Court revived a Texas death row inmate’s case in a ruling Wednesday, letting him request post-conviction DNA testing he says will show he did not murder the woman he claims to have been having an affair with — and instead show her fiance committed the crime.
Rodney Reed had requested DNA testing of a belt used in the homicide, arguing it would show he was wrongly convicted.
“In Reed’s case, the State’s alleged failure to provide Reed with a fundamentally fair process was complete when the state litigation ended and deprived Reed of his asserted liberty interest in DNA testing,” wrote Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh for the court. Justice Clarence Thomas filed his own dissenting opinion in which he said the court shouldn’t have considered the case because federal courts don’t have jurisdiction over state court judgments.
“We are grateful that the court has kept the courthouse doors open to Mr. Reed, a Black man who has spent 24 years on death row for the murder of a White woman with whom he was having an affair, a crime he has steadfastly maintained he did not commit. As Mr. Reed’s briefs explain, extensive evidence developed in post-conviction proceedings both points to Mr. Reed’s innocence and implicates the victim’s fiance,” said Mr. Rider-Longmaid.
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