After seeming to close the door in 2009 to constitutional claims by convicted individuals that they were wrongly denied access to DNA evidence gathered at a crime scene, the Supreme Court opened the door — but perhaps only slightly — on Monday. The Court ruled that the federal courts may hear, under civil rights law, a claim by a state prison inmate that his state’s procedures for testing of biological evidence are flawed. Although the Court majority stressed that it was not raising inmates’ hopes very high, the ruling potentially could have an impact in 48 states that do allow for some testing of DNA — evidence that sometimes provides a powerful demonstration of innocence, or of guilt. (The federal government also allows access to DNA evidence for testing.)
The Court’s new 6-3 decision in Skinner v. Switzer (09-9000) answered a question the Court had agreed to decide, but left open, two terms ago in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne (08-6), decided June 18, 2009.
In Osborne, the Court by a 5-4 majority ruled that prisoners do not have a constitutional right of access to DNA evidence. That decision, however, rejected a claim only of a “substantive due process” violation in denial of access to such material. On Monday, the Court majority in Skinner found a limited right of “procedural due process,” which the majority opinion characterized as leaving inmates “slim room” to pursue such a challenge. It left it to lower courts to decide whether a Texas death-row inmate, Henry W. Skinner, will actually win his claim that Texas’ DNA evidence law was used wrongly to deny him a chance to test biological material — not previously tested by the state. Police had gathered that evidence in 1993 at a house in Pampa, Texas, where a woman and her two adult sons were murdered. The woman was Skinner’s girlfriend; he shared the house with her and her sons.
March 08, 2011
