Supreme Court lets Texas death row inmate pursue DNA lawsuit

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ruled that longtime Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed should have a chance to argue for testing of crime-scene evidence that he says will help clear him. The justices, in a 6-3 decision, sent Reed’s case back to a lower court for his constitutional challenge to the state’s law on DNA testing. The issue before the Supreme Court was whether Reed, who was sentenced to death nearly 25 years ago, waited too long to file his lawsuit. Texas courts and a federal appeals court ruled that he had. But the Supreme Court reversed the lower court rulings. Reed was convicted of killing a 19-year-old woman in 1996.