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4 Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U. S. 413 (1923); District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U. S. 462 (1983).

That doctrine prohibits federal courts from adjudicating cases brought by state-court losing parties challenging state-court judgments. But as this Court explained in Skinner v. Switzer, even though a “state-court decision is not reviewable by lower federal courts,” a “statute or rule governing the decision may be challenged in a federal action.” 562 U. S. 521, 532 (2011). Here, as in Skinner, Reed does “not challenge the adverse” state-court decisions themselves, but rather “targets as unconstitutional the Texas statute they authoritatively construed.” Ibid.

This Court’s case law “severely limits the federal action a state prisoner may bring for DNA testing.” Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U. S. 521, 525 (2011). The Court has “rejected the extension of substantive due process to this area, and left slim room for the prisoner to show that the governing state law denies him procedural due process.” Ibid. (citation omitted); see District Attorney’s Office for Third Judicial Dist. v. Osborne, 557 U. S. 52, 69, 72 (2009).

Seeking to fit his §1983 suit within the “slim room” left by this Court’s precedent, Reed raised a procedural due process challenge to Texas’s post-conviction DNA testing law. The sole question now before this Court is whether Reed’s §1983 suit was timely. The parties agree that the statute of limitations for Reed’s claim is two years. But the parties disagree about when that 2-year limitations period began to run. That question is one of federal law. See Wallace v. Kato, 549 U. S. 384, 388 (2007).

As a general matter, the statute of limitations begins to run when the plaintiff has a “complete and present cause of action.” Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 522 U. S. 192, 201 (1997)