U.S. Supreme Court hears Texas death row inmate’s appeal for DNA test of evidence

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The U.S. Supreme Court was seemingly divided Monday on a Texas death row inmate’s claim that the state is constitutionally obligated to provide DNA testing on evidence he says would prove he didn’t kill an elderly woman during a robbery.

Ruben Gutierrez, 47, was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of Escolastica Harrison in Brownsville. The 85-year-old woman was killed when Gutierrez and two other men broke into her mobile home to steal more than $600,000 in cash she kept inside. Prosecutors said Gutierrez stabbed and beat Harrison before helping steal her money.

While Gutierrez has never contested he was a participant in robbing Harrison, he has maintained since his arrest he was not the one who stabbed Harrison to death. Gutierrez has spent the past decade seeking DNA testing of hair and blood found on Harrison’s fingernails he says will prove he was not the killer, but Texas’ courts and Luis Saenz, the Cameron County district attorney have refused to test the available evidence.

Gutierrez and his legal team challenged a 2019 law limiting post-conviction DNA testing of evidence, which was initially upheld by a federal district court before being struck down by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court delayed Gutierrez’s execution in July 2024 to review the 5th Circuit’s ruling, which held that Gutierrez lacked standing to sue the Cameron County DA who prosecuted him over the constitutionality of the law.

During oral arguments Monday, Gutierrez’s lawyer called on a 2023 Supreme Court ruling, also out of Texas, which challenged the state’s post-conviction DNA testing statute of limitations. But the ruling in that case, Reed v. Goertz, also established that whether a lawsuit will provide a remedy depends on if a favorable ruling would compel a prosecutor to provide the evidence.

The defense claimed that Gutierrez’s case was potentially moot even with a favorable ruling, as the DA could still potentially deny the testing, but Justice Elena Kagan pushed back on the defense and likened Gutierrez’s complaint to Reed’s.

“If you looked at Reed's complaint, it was, really, I thought, pretty similar to this,” Kagan said.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh seemed sympathetic to Gutierrez’s cause, expressing the favorable ruling’s potential inability to compel the DNA testing did not affect his standing to sue.

“I don't see how we can say something's not redressable just because the prosecutor is going to say, ‘I'm not going to comply with a court order,’” Kavanaugh said.

Defense for the Cameron County DA argued during the hearing that even if DNA testing did not come up positive for Gutierrez, it would not clear him of guilt in the crime or make him ineligible for the death penalty. Gutierrez was convicted under the law of parties, which allows those charged to be found guilty by a jury if they assist in a violent crime they understood could cause deadly harm.

Justice Samuel Alito aligned with the defense’s line of questioning, asking whether the court’s distinction between the DNA’s application to a guilty or death penalty eligibility claim would alter the DA’s willingness to provide the testing. Alito also questioned Gutierrez’s argument that mentioned evidence outside of the DNA testing, which brought up “all sorts” of other issues outside the scope of the case.

“It's really hard for me to see, for that reason, how a decision on this distinction between death eligibility and guilt could make a difference in the district attorney's decision,” Alito said.

A ruling on the case is expected to be delivered in the next few months. Gutierrez does not currently have an execution date as the state awaits a ruling.

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