DNA evidence suits OKd under Federal civil rights

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that prisoners can file federal civil-rights lawsuits seeking DNA testing of crime-scene evidence, a decision that gives inmates a new legal pathway to seek exoneration through scientific evidence, the Wall Street Journal yesterday reported.

The case, Skinner v. Switzer, "was a follow-up to the Supreme Court's District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne 5-4 decision in 2009 that said convicts had no constitutional right to DNA testing of evidence in their cases, a ruling that left the matter to the discretion of individual states," the Journal article said. But, "the legal issue in the case was also tightly focused and quite preliminary," the New York Times added, "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg emphasizing the narrowness of the ruling. Allowing Mr. Skinner to sue, she said, was not the same thing as saying he should win his suit.

“Justice Ginsburg noted that Osborne, had severely limited the kinds of claims prisoners seeking DNA evidence can make. That decision, she wrote, "left slim room for the prisoner to show that the governing state law denies him procedural due process."


USAToday and CNN also had stories