US Supreme Court Weighs DNA Evidence for Death Row Defendant (1)

The US Supreme Court struggled with whether to allow a Texas death row inmate to continue to appeal his capital sentence, with several justices suggesting a win for the defendant now might not matter.

The case argued on Monday turns on whether courts can consider constitutional challenges to unfair procedures, which Justice Brett Kavanaugh said were “special.”

Speaking to Texas Deputy Solicitor General William Cole, Kavanaugh agreed that the state had some good arguments on the merits. “That may be a winning argument, it may be a losing argument, but that’s a down-the-road argument,” Kavanaugh said.

And at this point in the case, when the question is whether the defendant can ask a court to take look at the procedures, “that’s just a stone cold loser,” Kavanaugh said.

A decision is expected by the end of June or early July.

Ruben Gutierrez was convicted and sentenced to death for his role in the 1998 robbery and murder of Escolastica Harrison. The state agrees that other individuals were involved with the murder and at least one other defendant was convicted alongside Gutierrez.

Gutierrez now seeks DNA evidence under a state statute in order to show that he’s not eligible for the death sentence.

The justices halted Gutierrez’s July 16 execution at the last minute to allow them to consider his appeal. It was the second time they’d stopped his execution.

Arguments centered largely on the court’s 2023 ruling in Reed v. Goertz, which involved a different Texas death row inmate, Rodney Reed. A 6-3 court said Reed had standing to seek post-conviction DNA testing because a federal court ruling in his favor would significantly increase the likelihood the state would provide the requested evidence.

“This court should hold that Mr. Gutierrez has standing for the same reason,” said Assistant Federal Defender Anne Fisher.

But while Reed sought DNA evidence to prove his complete innocence, Gutierrez wants the evidence to show that his limited culpability in the crime makes him ineligible for the sentence—what the parties refer to as death eligibility.

A Texas state court held that the state statute doesn’t allow for DNA evidence to show death ineligibility as opposed to innocence, and that even if it did, other evidence implicating Gutierrez would allow for the sentence.

The state court held Gutierrez didn’t have standing, or the legal authority, to seek DNA testing.

Unlike in Reed, there are several individual reasons why Gutierrez can’t have the DNA evidence, Cole said.

Because there’s nothing a court can do to change or “redress” that, Gutierrez lacks standing, Cole said.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted that’s not typically how courts have analyzed standing. The requirement of redressability, the idea that a court must be able to provide a remedy to the parties, “has not been a major hurdle for the court to have to get over,” Jackson said.

“I guess what I’m really, really worried about is that this case, which seems very small and narrow and about, you know, a particular guy and DNA testing and the interpretation of this statute, could actually have major implications for how we understand standing,” she said.

The case is Gutierrez v. Saenz, U.S., No. 23-7809.