Supreme Court Won’t Hear DNA Appeal From Texas Death Row Inmate

The US Supreme Court has again declined to hear an appeal from a Texas death row inmate who says DNA testing of evidence in his case could clear his name.

The justices previously sided with Rodney Reed in a 2023 decision finding his federal civil rights claim wasn’t time-barred. But the court has been unwilling to intervene further in his case—denying a 2024 request for a new trial and, on Monday, his attempt to secure post-conviction DNA testing.

Reed, who is Black, was convicted by an all-White jury in 1998 of the murder of Stacey Lee Stites. Reed has maintained his innocence and suggested Stites’ fiancé, a local police officer in Texas, committed the murder because he was angry Reed and Stites were having an affair.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied a habeas petition from Reed last year challenging Texas’ post-conviction DNA testing procedures on due process grounds. Texas law requires, among other factors, that a state court first rule evidence hasn’t been tampered with.

Writing in dissent Monday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the court’s decision means Texas will likely execute Reed “without the world ever knowing” whether his DNA was on the murder weapon. Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the dissent.

The case is Reed v. Goertz, U.S., No. 24-1268, cert denied 3/23/26.