Supreme Court divided over death series rights to DNA –KEVERTEST

Argument analysis

The Supreme Court was shared on Monday as to whether a Texas man at the Death Council has a legal right to sue, known as standing, to bring federal civil rights requirements that challenge the constitutionality of the Texas laws that regulate DNA tests. Ruben Gutierrez is trying to achieve DNA testing of evidence that he says would clear him, but it was unclear whether a majority of the judges agreed that his challenge should be allowed to move forward.

Gutierrez was sentenced to death for the 1998 murder of 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison in Brownsville, Tex. Gutierrez admits he was involved in a scheme to rob Harrison of $ 600,000 in cash, which she held in her home, but he now insists he never entered Harrison’s home and did not participate in her murder.

Gutierrez claims that DNA from multiple evidence – such as a hair and nail scrape from Harrison’s finger and blood stains – would prove that he never went into Harrison’s home. And if this DNA had been available, he claims, the jury would not have sentenced him to death.

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the State’s Highest Court of Criminal Cases, maintained in 2011 a State Court of Justice refusing to Gutierrez’s request for DNA testing. It gave up that the Texas Act for requests for DNA testing does not allow testing when the results of the test would only affect the judgment that a prisoner received, rather than the provision of guilt or innocence. In other words, the Texas Act would only allow the Gutierrez DNA test if he could prove that with this proof he would not have been convicted at all.

Several years later, Gutierrez filed a federal civil rights case against Luis Saenz, the district attorney who accused him, and Felix Sauckeda, Brownsville police chief. He challenged the constitutionalness of the state’s DNA testing procedures and argued that they violated his right to proper process – that is, a fair treatment of the government.

A federal court in agreed that the Texas scheme for DNA testing and relief after conviction violated his constitutional right to proper process. Although the Texas Act gives prisoners the right to submit another request for relief after conviction if they can present “clear and compelling” proof that they should not have been sentenced to death, explained senior US district judge Hilda Tagle, the state’s DNA- Testing legislation Remove the ability of a prisoners to achieve this proof.

A shared panel for the US appeal for 5th circuit threw that decision last year. It found that Gutierrez had not been in charge of bringing his trial because the State Court of Court for Criminal Appeals had established that although DNA tests showed that Gutierrez never entered Harrison’s house, he would still have been justified in the death penalty due of his role in the robbery scheme that led to her murder. Therefore, the Court of Appeal concluded that prosecutors would not probably order DNA tests, and therefore the courts cannot give him any relief – one of the criteria for standing.

The Supreme Court once again set Gutierrez’s execution in July 2024, just 20 minutes before he was scheduled to be executed, to give the judges time to consider his petition to review the 5th circuit’s decision. The judges agreed in October 2024 to take up his case.

At the Supreme Court on Monday morning, Gutierrez’s lawyer, Anne Fisher, Doms said that his injury – refusal of evidence of DNA testing – can be treated through a decision in favor of because a decision “that finds certain procedures in the” Texas law unconstitutional ” Eliminates these statutory procedures as a legal reason “for state officials to prevent the test.

On the other hand, William Cole, a Deputy General Attorney from Texas, opposed Texas that the decision of the court did not give relief to Gutierrez’s injury. According to the Supreme Court’s recent decision that allows Rodney Reed’s challenge to the State DNA testing law to move forward, the question of a trial will provide a means of hinges as to whether the decision to the defendant’s benefit “eliminates the state attorney’s justification for refusing the test and thus… increases The probability that the prosecutor would hand over the evidence. ” Independent “Reasons to reject Gutierrez’s request for access to the evidence.

Some of the Court’s Conservative Justices were skeptical that a decision in Gutierrez’s advantage would actually make a difference. Justice Neil Gorsuch referred to a decision by the State Court of Criminal Appeals, which indicates that even if the DNA testing law applies to the death penalty, Gutierrez would still not receive relief. That was, Gorsuch suggested, effectively “harmless error.”

Fisher pushed back and argued that the courts should look more broadly at the evidence to determine whether Gutierrez should still be subject to the death penalty.

But Chief Justice John Roberts was skeptical of this claim and asked how much more evidence would be necessary to tilt the scale in Gutierrez’s advantage. Is it, he asked, “A little finger -buging further proof? I mean, how’s a court going to find out? “

Justice Samuel Alito expressed frustration more generally and noticed to Fisher that “this trial has been going on for more than 25 years. I’m just interested in knowing if it’s going anywhere. “

Justice Brett Kavanaugh was more sympathy for Gutierrez. He opposed the proposal that Gutierrez lacked status of suing because prosecutors, even in the light of a decision in Gutierrez’s advantage, may not turn evidence of testing. “I just can’t see,” Kavanaugh said, “how we can say that something cannot be reduced just because the prosecutor will say I will not comply with a court decision. You know, if President Nixon said I’m not going to turn the ties, no matter what, you wouldn’t say oh, I assume we haven’t been to hear the performing privilege. “

Justice Elena Kagan was not convinced that Gutierrez was not entitled to test, because even though the evidence was tested and was useful to him, he would still be eligible for the death penalty. A state law made “the identical backup argument in” Reed’s case, she observed, but the Supreme Court “obviously did not care about” it – and instead gave Reed’s challenge were allowed to move on.

On his part, justice Sonia Sotomayor also seemed frustrated – but with the state’s failure to order the test rather than the length of the trial. “It seems strange to fight for that tooth and nail,” she told Cole, especially when there is more evidence of “potential guilt” in the victim’s nephew. “Don’t you want to know,” she asked Cole, “You convince the right person for the right thing?”

A decision in the case is expected in the summer.

This article was originally published on Howe on the field.