Opinion of the Court
innocent and that Stites’s fiancé or another acquaintance had committed the murder. A jury rejected that defense theory and found Reed guilty. Reed was sentenced to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and death sentence. Reed’s state and federal habeas petitions were unsuccessful.
Then in 2014, Reed filed a motion in state court under Texas’s post-conviction DNA testing law. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Arts. 64.01–64.05 (Vernon 2018). Reed requested DNA testing on more than 40 pieces of evidence, including the belt used to strangle Stites. Reed contended that DNA testing would help identify the true perpetrator. The state prosecutor, respondent Bryan Goertz, agreed to test several pieces of evidence, but otherwise opposed the motion and refused to test most of the evidence.
The state trial court denied Reed’s motion. The court reasoned in part that (i) many items Reed sought to test—including the belt—were not preserved through an adequate chain of custody and (ii) Reed did not demonstrate that he would have been acquitted if the DNA results were exculpatory. On appeal, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court and later denied Reed’s motion for rehearing.
Reed next 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. Among other things, Reed argued that the law’s stringent chain-of-custody requirement was unconstitutional and in effect foreclosed DNA testing for individuals convicted before “rules governing the State’s handling and storage of evidence were put in place.” App. 39.
The U. S. District Court for the Western District of Texas dismissed Reed’s complaint. The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed on the ground that Reed’s §1983 suit was filed too late, after the applicable 2-year statute of limitations had run. The Fifth Circuit ruled that the
