The Supreme Court on Monday turned aside a long-running appeal from Rodney Reed, a death row inmate in Texas who has been seeking to obtain DNA testing that he said could help prove his innocence.
The three liberal justices dissented, saying the court’s refusal to hear Mr. Reed’s request means Texas is likely to execute him without ever knowing whether his DNA is on the murder weapon, “even though a simple DNA test could reveal that information.”
The majority did not explain its reasons for rejecting Mr. Reed’s appeal, as is typical when the court issues routine orders in pending cases.
Mr. Reed was convicted of the 1996 rape and murder of Stacey Stites, who was strangled with her own belt in Bastrop County, Texas. DNA collected from Ms. Stites’s body matched that of Mr. Reed.
Mr. Reed, who is Black, initially denied knowing Ms. Stites, who was white, but later said they had been romantically involved. He said another man, perhaps Ms. Stites’s fiancé, had committed the murder.
The jury rejected Mr. Reed’s defense, and he was sentenced to death.
His case, which was previously before the Supreme Court in 2023, has drawn intense interest from lawmakers and celebrities, including Kim Kardashian and Rihanna. A Texas appeals court halted his execution in 2019, returning the case to a state trial court.
Mr. Reed sought to test some 40 items of evidence, including the belt, but a state judge denied the request, saying that the chain of custody had not been reliable and that Mr. Reed could not show that he would have been acquitted even if the DNA results turned out to be favorable. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest court for criminal matters, affirmed the ruling and later denied rehearing.
Mr. Reed then sued in federal court, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that his request was barred by a two-year statute of limitations. The panel said that Mr. Reed should have sued within two years after the state trial judge ruled against his request for testing.
But in 2023, the Supreme Court sided with Mr. Reed, clearing the way for him to bring a claim seeking DNA testing in the lower courts. That decision was merely about the timing of his request.
In their six-page dissent on Monday, the liberal justices called it “inexplicable” that the Bastrop County District Attorney’s Office had refused to allow DNA testing of the belt that was used to kill Ms. Stites “despite the very substantial possibility that such testing could exculpate Reed and identify the real killer.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, also criticized the Fifth Circuit for not more carefully considering Mr. Reed’s claim that the state’s DNA-testing law is unconstitutional because it does not provide defendants like Mr. Reed with a fair or due process. Mr. Reed had argued that it was unfair to penalize prisoners for any contamination of evidence when the state controls its storage.
Jane Pucher, a lawyer for Mr. Reed, called the outcome at the Supreme Court “disheartening.”
“Given everything we now know,” Ms. Pucher said in a statement, “it is inexplicable why Texas would not want to test the murder weapon and confirm the truth.” Mr. Reed’s legal team said it will “continue to pursue avenues to obtain relief.”
The Texas attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
Adam Liptak contributed reporting.
Ann E. Marimow covers the Supreme Court for The Times from Washington.
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