Page:Reed v. Goertz.pdf/7

Rh (internal quotation marks omitted). To determine when a plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action, the Court focuses first on the specific constitutional right alleged to have been infringed. See McDonough v. Smith, 588 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip op., at 4).

Here, the specific constitutional right allegedly infringed is procedural due process. A procedural due process claim consists of two elements: (i) deprivation by state action of a protected interest in life, liberty, or property, and (ii) inadequate state process. See Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U. S. 113, 125 (1990). Importantly, the Court has stated that a procedural due process claim “is not complete when the deprivation occurs.” Id., at 126. Rather, the claim is “complete” only when “the State fails to provide due process.” Ibid.

Reed contends that the State’s process for considering his DNA testing request was fundamentally unfair in violation of the Due Process Clause. Texas’s process for considering a request for DNA testing in capital cases includes not only trial court proceedings, but also appellate review by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 64.05. And under longstanding Texas rules of appellate procedure, the Court of Criminal Appeals’s appellate review process encompasses a motion for rehearing. Tex. Rule App. Proc. 79.1 (2022).

In Reed’s case, the State’s alleged failure to provide Reed with a fundamentally fair process was complete when the state litigation ended and deprived Reed of his asserted liberty interest in DNA testing. Therefore, Reed’s §1983 claim was complete and the statute of limitations began to run when the state litigation ended—when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Reed’s motion for rehearing.

The soundness of that straightforward conclusion is “reinforced by the consequences that would follow” from a contrary approach. McDonough, 588 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 9). If the statute of limitations for a §1983 suit like