Supreme Court considers Texas death-row inmate's request for DNA testing

Supreme Court considers Texas death-row inmate's request for DNA testing
By Kate Scanlon , OSV News

WASHINGTON (OSV News) -- The U.S. Supreme Court Feb. 24 considered the case of a Texas death-row inmate who is seeking to obtain post-conviction DNA testing on evidence that he claims would show he did not directly participate in a 1998 murder and lead to the repeal of his death sentence.

The case presents a complex legal question about his ability to make such an appeal about his death sentence, not his conviction. Under Texas law, a party to murder can be convicted of murder, but it could bar the death penalty sentence. Capital punishment is a practice opposed by the Catholic Church in most circumstances.

The inmate, Ruben Gutierrez, was sentenced to death for charges related to the 1998 murder of 85-year-old Escolastica Harrison in her Brownsville, Texas, home. Gutierrez has long argued DNA testing of several pieces of evidence in the case, such as a hair found on the victim's finger, nail scrapings and blood stains, would show that he was not in Harrison's home, and therefore would not have been sentenced to death.

Gutierrez has acknowledged participation in a plot to rob Harrison, but claimed he stayed outside the trailer home, where his co-de­fen­dants killed her. Gutierrez's attorneys have argued there is a lack of physical or forensic evidence connecting him to the killing, and they have appealed his death sentence. Two other individuals were also charged in connection to the crime.

Texas prosecutors have declined to do DNA testing of the evidence in the case, arguing state law allows post-conviction DNA testing only for defendants who are appealing their convictions, not their sentences. As Gutierrez is only appealing his sentence, they say he lacks standing, or a legal right to sue.

However, Anne Fisher, a lawyer for Gutierrez, argued the case was similar to that of Texas death-row inmate Rodney Reed, who also challenged Texas' post-conviction DNA testing statute. The high court ruled in Reed's favor in 2023.

"This court should hold that Mr. Gutierrez has standing for the same reason," Fisher said.

William Cole of the Texas Attorney General's Office argued the state's law supports its interpretation that Gutierrez lacks standing in the case.

But Justice Sonia Sotomayor met that argument with skepticism, asking, "If you are sure of your conviction in your theory, why not do the testing?"

Pope Francis revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 to reflect that capital punishment is morally "inadmissible" in the modern world and that the church "works with determination for its abolishment worldwide."

A decision in the case is expected by the end of the Supreme Court's term, which typically ends in June.

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Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon.