Access to post-conviction DNA testing and review of flawed science is critical for incarcerated people with innocence claims. Many U.S. states have passed laws to permit incarcerated people to access those tools. Unfortunately, Texas’s courts have restrictively interpreted laws on post-conviction testing. But on June 26, 2025, in a modest but significant victory for incarcerated people seeking access to post-conviction DNA testing, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that Texas prisoners have standing to challenge the constitutionality of state procedures in Gutierrez v. Saenz.

In 1999, Ruben Gutierrez was convicted of the murder of Escolastica Harrison and sentenced to death. Gutierrez has twice unsuccessfully sought post-conviction DNA testing to prove that, while he participated in robbing Harrison, he was not involved in her murder and therefore could not be subject to the death penalty under Texas law.

Chapter 64 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure permits post-conviction DNA testing in certain circumstances. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA)  concluded that Gutierrez was ineligible because, to receive DNA testing under Chapter 64, a prisoner must show that he “would not have been convicted if exculpatory results had been obtained through DNA testing.” There is, however, a serious conflict within Texas post-conviction law. One law would permit Gutierrez to file a second habeas petition with clear and convincing evidence that, even if guilty of the offense, he was not eligible for the death penalty. Chapter 64, however, only allows DNA testing if the results could prove actual innocence—not ineligibility for death.

Gutierrez sued in federal court, arguing that this conflict violated his right to procedural due process. While there is no substantive federal constitutional right to test DNA evidence, prisoners may argue that the procedures are “fundamentally inadequate to vindicate the substantive rights” that the state law has provided. The district court concluded that the statutory conflict meant that Texas’s procedures were “fundamentally inadequate” and granted Gutierrez a declaratory judgment to that effect.

On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decided that federal courts lacked jurisdiction to hear Gutierrez’s claims because he did not have standing. To have standing, a litigant must show an injury that is fairly traceable to the defendant’s conduct and that the injury is capable of redress by a favorable judicial ruling. The Fifth Circuit concluded that because the TCCA’s construction of Chapter 64 did not give Gutierrez a right to DNA testing, his injury was not redressable because a declaratory judgment was not likely to make the state prosecutor authorize testing. Two years ago, however, in Reed v. Goertz, the Supreme Court had held that Rodney Reed, another prisoner on Texas’s death row, had standing to challenge procedural due process flaws in Chapter 64.

In a short 6–3 opinion, the Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit and concluded that, just like Reed, Gutierrez had standing. Gutierrez had been denied access to the evidence to test it. If a federal court found that Texas’s law violated due process, the prosecutor could not justify denying DNA testing. As Justice Sotomayor explained in her majority opinion, “That a prosecutor might eventually find another reason, grounded in Article 64 or elsewhere, to deny a prisoner’s request for DNA testing does not vitiate his standing to argue that the cited reasons violated his rights under the Due Process Clause.” Justice Alito dissented because, while he agreed that Reed applied, he believed the majority had altered the test and ignored essential differences in the two cases. Although the Court did not reach the merits of Gutierrez’s arguments about procedural due process, Gutierrez at least provides prisoners seeking post-conviction DNA testing in Texas an opportunity to raise procedural due process arguments, even if they face an uphill battle.

A 2024 report by the Texas Defender Service highlighted serious flaws in the application of the state’s post-conviction testing law, such as the TCCA’s requirement that people convicted on flawed science meet a higher standard than the one actually written in the statute. The Texas House of Representatives has passed a bill intended to resolve these issues,  but it has not yet cleared the Texas Senate. Although the outcome in Gutierrez is welcome, it is not enough to only provide access to post-conviction remedies—courts must also ensure that the remedies themselves are meaningful.