Page:Reed v. Goertz.pdf/3

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delivered the opinion of the Court.

In many States, a convicted prisoner who still disputes his guilt may ask state courts to order post-conviction DNA testing of evidence. If the prisoner’s request fails in the state courts and he then files a federal 42 U. S. C. §1983 procedural due process suit challenging the constitutionality of the state process, when does the statute of limitations for that §1983 suit begin to run? The Eleventh Circuit has held that the statute of limitations begins to run at the end of the state-court litigation denying DNA testing, including the state-court appeal. See Van Poyck v. McCollum, 646 F. 3d 865, 867 (2011). In this case, by contrast, the Fifth Circuit held that the statute of limitations begins to run when the state trial court denied DNA testing, notwithstanding a subsequent state-court appeal. See 995 F. 3d 425, 431 (2021). We conclude that the statute of limitations begins to run at the end of the state-court litigation.

In 1996, Stacey Stites was strangled to death in Bastrop County, Texas. The State charged Rodney Reed with murdering Stites. At trial, Reed claimed that he was