Supreme Court of the United States · Official docket →
Rodney Reed v. Bryan Goertz, in His Official Capacity as District Attorney of Bastrop County, Texas
Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, No. 19-70022 · judgment May 1, 2025
Before the decision, about 3.9× the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a petition filed soon after the judgment below, counsel who has won certiorari before, and a Fifth Circuit decision below.
Question presented
In 2023, the Court reversed the Fifth Circuit’s holding that Rodney Reed’s DNA-testing suit was untimely and rejected District Attorney Bryan Goertz’s jurisdictional arguments. Reed v. Goertz, 598 U.S. 230 (2023). The case now returns on the merits, as Goertz continues refusing to test the murder weapon. Reed has been on death row for over a quarter century for a crime he steadfastly maintains he didn’t commit. Since he was convicted, Reed has amassed a “substantial body of evidence” refuting the state’s theory of the case. Reed v. Texas, 140 S. Ct. 686, 689 (2020) (statement of Sotomayor, J., respecting the denial of certiorari). Despite the resulting “pall of uncertainty over Reed’s conviction,” id. at 690, Goertz refuses to DNA-test the murder weapon—testing that Reed’s attorneys have offered to pay for and that could prove his innocence. Instead, Goertz relies on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeal’s (CCA) authoritative construction of Texas’s postconviction DNA-testing statute, Article 64 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, to insist that Reed isn’t entitled to DNA testing. The CCA’s construction rests, among other things, on the notion that potentially “contaminated” evidence cannot yield probative DNA results—a notion that science disproves and that Texas itself rejects in many cases when seeking to prove guilt. The question presented is whether Article 64, as authoritatively construed by the CCA, violates due process by arbitrarily denying prisoners access to postconviction DNA testing, rendering illusory prisoners’ state-created right to prove their innocence through newly discovered evidence.
Counsel of record
For petitioner
Parker Andrew Rider-Longmaid
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
For respondent
Travis Golden Bragg
Office of the Attorney General of Texas
Case
Conference history
Distributed for 15 conferences
Amicus briefs
1 cert-stage
Argument & decision
Decided March 23, 2026.
Proceedings
- Mar 23 2026Petition DENIED. Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson join, dissenting from the denial of certiorari. (Detached Opinion)
- Mar 16 2026DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 3/20/2026.
- Mar 02 2026DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 3/6/2026.
- Feb 23 2026DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/27/2026.
- Feb 13 2026DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/20/2026.
- Jan 20 2026DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 1/23/2026.
- Jan 12 2026DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 1/16/2026.
- Jan 05 2026DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 1/9/2026.
- Dec 08 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 12/12/2025.
- Dec 01 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 12/5/2025.
- Nov 18 2025Rescheduled.
- Nov 17 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/21/2025.
- Nov 10 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/14/2025.
- Nov 10 2025Rescheduled.
- Nov 03 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/7/2025.
- Nov 03 2025Rescheduled.
- Oct 14 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 10/17/2025.
- Oct 14 2025Rescheduled.
- Oct 07 2025Rescheduled.
- Sep 17 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 10/10/2025.
- Sep 15 2025The electronic record on appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee was received. All other records are available on PACER.
- Sep 08 2025Record Requested.
- Sep 08 2025The record of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is available on PACER.
- Aug 27 2025DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 9/29/2025.
- Aug 27 2025Reply of petitioner Rodney Reed filed. (Distributed)
- Aug 13 2025Brief of respondent Bryan Goertz in opposition filed.
- Jul 10 2025Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including August 13, 2025.
- Jul 10 2025Brief amicus curiae of Chase Baumgartner filed.
- Jul 08 2025Motion to extend the time to file a response from July 14, 2025 to August 13, 2025, submitted to The Clerk.
- Jun 10 2025Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due July 14, 2025)