I continue to make my way through the final decisions of the term. Next up is Gutierrez v. Saenz. At first blush, this is the sort of case you might skip over. Can a convicted murderer sue the District Attorney under Section 1983 to force him to test potentially exonerating DNA evidence? This dispute turns, in part, on whether the District Attorney's refusal to test the DNA deprives the defendant of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. To be clear, the Defendant was afforded more than the process he was due at the criminal trial, through the appellate process, and through collateral review. The constitutional question presented here is whether the refusal to test the DNA violates the Due Process Clause.
The Fifth Circuit panel did not reach the merits. Rather, the panel found that the Defendant lacked standing to bring the Section 1983 claim. The Supreme Court, by a vote of 6-3, reversed the lower court. Justice Sotomayor's majority opinion found that the Defendant had standing to bring the claim.
Justice Barrett concurred in judgment. She thinks the lower court misapplied Reed v. Goertz, but wrote that the Court's analysis "muddies the waters of standing doctrine." I wish the Process Formalist would have written more than a paragraph to explain why. But this is all we got.
