The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday said a Texas death row inmate can sue state officials in federal court to try to obtain post-conviction DNA testing, a decision that could open the door to broader challenges to how Texas provides access to forensic evidence after conviction.

In a 6-3 decision, which reverses a ruling the Fifth Circuit issued last year, the justices found that Ruben Gutierrez has standing under federal civil rights law to seek a declaratory judgment challenging Texas' post-conviction DNA testing procedures, known as Article 64, which he argues are unconstitutional. Gutierrez was denied DNA testing several times under the statute.

While the ruling does not guarantee he will receive the testing, it allows his case to proceed in federal court — a significant development for inmates in states with restrictive testing laws.

In the majority opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that "a declaratory judgment in Gutierrez's favor would redress his injury by removing the allegedly unconstitutional barrier" that the Texas law erected between him and the requested testing.

"A procedural due process claim like Gutierrez's is not mooted by the defendant's mid-appeal promise that, regardless of the lawsuit's outcome, the ultimate result will remain the same," the majority opinion says.

Justices Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.

The ruling in Gutierrez v. Saenz marks the second time within a few years the Supreme Court has delved into the issue of standing to bring a due process claim in the context of Article 64.

In April 2023, the justices ruled in a case called Reed v. Goertz that a prisoner seeking testing has until all state appeals conclude before the statute of limitations for filing a suit in federal court begins to accrue.

In her opinion Thursday, Justice Sotomayor said that if a federal court concluded that Texas' post-conviction DNA testing procedures violate due process, the state prosecutor's justification for denying DNA testing would be eliminated, thereby removing the barrier between Reed and the requested testing.

"The same is true here," she wrote. "Like Reed, Gutierrez alleges that the local prosecutor's denial of his DNA testing request deprived him of his liberty interests in utilizing state procedures to obtain an acquittal or sentence reduction," adding that a declaratory judgment by a federal court "would redress that injury" by eliminating the state prosecutor's justification for denying DNA testing.

In a statement to reporters, an attorney for Gutierrez, Shawn Nolan of Federal Community Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said his client was "one step closer to proving that he was wrongfully sentenced to death."

"The court's decision makes clear that Ruben has a legal right to challenge the Texas post-conviction DNA statute which limits his access to DNA testing to show he should not have been sentenced to death," Nolan said in the statement. "We trust the Cameron County District Attorney will heed the Supreme Court's decision and provide us, at long last, with access to the extensive forensic evidence in Ruben's case."

Although Gutierrez admitted he was at the Brownsville, Texas, trailer park where 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison was robbed and killed in 1998, he sought DNA testing to prove he didn't participate in the murder itself, a distinction he argued would render him ineligible for the death penalty. He also claimed evidence pointed to other possible killers.

Texas courts repeatedly denied his requests, reasoning that even if DNA evidence excluded him from the crime scene, it wouldn't prove he was innocent of capital murder — one that occurs during the commission of another felony — but only that he wasn't inside the victim's home.

In 2019, Gutierrez filed a civil rights lawsuit against District Attorney Luis Saenz in Brownsville, arguing that Texas' post-conviction DNA testing procedures under Chapter 64 of the state Code of Criminal Procedure violated his right to due process.

A federal district court agreed in 2020, finding the state's law unconstitutional because it limited DNA testing to claims of innocence of the conviction, not innocence of the death penalty.

The court said the statute effectively rendered Texas' mechanism to challenge a death sentence after a conviction invalid because prisoners are practically prevented from obtaining the forensic evidence needed to support their case.

The state appealed, contending that Gutierrez lacked standing, and in February 2024, a panel of the Fifth Circuit reversed the lower court, ruling that it had no jurisdiction.

The panel concluded that a federal court couldn't grant Gutierrez relief because Texas courts had already denied his request on grounds independent of Chapter 64, finding that the DNA evidence — even if tested — would not have changed the outcome of his trial.

The appeals court distinguished Gutierrez's case from the Supreme Court's Reed case, saying Gutierrez's claim would have no practical effect because state courts had already declined testing on other procedural grounds.

In his June 2024 certiorari petition, Gutierrez argued the Fifth Circuit's ruling conflicted with decisions from the Eighth and Ninth circuits, which he said applied the standing doctrine as the Supreme Court instructed in Reed.

During oral arguments on Feb. 24, the justices grappled with whether a federal court ruling striking down Texas' DNA testing law would provide Gutierrez with meaningful relief, or whether the state could still deny testing on other grounds, rendering his lawsuit moot.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson voiced concern that Texas' narrow view of legal standing could undermine long-standing constitutional principles.

"What I'm really, really worried about," she said, "is that this case, which seems very small and narrow and about a particular guy and DNA testing and the interpretation of the statute, could actually have major implications for how we understand standing," she said.

Justice Samuel Alito, meanwhile, expressed frustration over the longevity of the litigation, which spans more than two decades.

"I just am interested in knowing whether it's going anywhere," he said.

In the decision issued Thursday, the court's majority reasoned that it didn't matter whether the Brownsville DA's office could ultimately deny testing to Gutierrez — he still had a constitutional right to sue.

"That a prosecutor might eventually find another reason to deny a prisoner's DNA testing request does not eliminate the prisoner's standing to argue that the cited reasons violated his rights under the Due Process Clause," Justice Sotomayor wrote in her opinion, saying that the Fifth Circuit's ruling flouted the high court's decision in Reed.

In a partially concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said that the Fifth Circuit "failed to consider the breadth of the relief that Gutierrez requested in his complaint" and that alone was grounds for a reversal. She disagreed with other parts of the holding.

Justices Thomas and Alito issued dissenting opinions.

In his sharply worded dissent, Justice Alito said that the majority went "sharply off course" in interpreting the Reed ruling, adding that there are "critical differences" between Reed's case and Gutierrez's.

Justice Alito said the majority "blatantly" altered the Reed test and unjustly criticized the Fifth Circuit for applying what he described as "the real Reed test," warning that the majority opinion "will do serious damage" if used as a precedent on standing.

"A favorable decision on Gutierrez's constitutional argument would not bolster his challenge to his sentence," Justice Alito wrote. "This decision's only practical effect will be to aid and abet Gutierrez's efforts to run out the clock on the execution of his sentence."

Gutierrez is represented by Anne E. Fisher and Shawn Nolan of the Federal Community Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Saenz is represented by William Francis Cole of the Office of the Attorney General of Texas.

The case is Gutierrez v. Saenz, case number 23-7809, in the Supreme Court of the United States.

--Editing by Alyssa Miller.

Update: This article has been updated to include additional information from the ruling and comment from the attorneys for Gutierrez.