The Supreme Court ruled by a 5-4 margin that the due process clause cannot be interpreted to include DNA tests. In other words, a state does not deny the 14th Amendment's guarantee of the due process of the law if it does not allow an individual convicted of a crime to pay for his own DNA test to prove his innocence.
The case is District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne.
From Scotusblog:
Splitting 5-4, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that an individual whose criminal conviction has become final does not have a constitutional right to gain access to evidence so that it can be subjected to DNA testing to try to prove innocence. ....
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., writing for the majority in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne (08-6), noted that DNA testing provides “an unparalleled ability” to prove innocence or guilt, but its availability “cannot mean that every criminal conviction, or even every criminal conviction involving biological evidence, is suddenly in doubt.” The opinion is available here.
The task of writing rules to control access to DNA evidence “belongs primarily” to the legislature, the Chief Justice wrote. Pursuing a “freestanding and far-reaching constitutional right of access” to DNA evidence through a civil rights lawsuit, Roberts wrote, would “short-circuit” efforts now being made by the federal government and many states to develop tools on access to such evidence. “There is no reason to constitutionalize” access through the courts when elected officials are making “a prompt and considered” response to the DNA phenomenon, the opinion concluded.
I highlighted what I think is the most important part of the decision. The majority wants the judiciary to defer to the legislature in this matter and to also limit the range of cases that can argued on civil rights grounds. Most commentary focuses on the ideological division in the decision reflecting the continued division between liberals and conservatives on the role of the court, the rights of criminal defendants (or convicts in this case), and civil rights. Since the court's have limited their ability to compel the states to abide by an expansive definition of constitutional language, this would probably also qualify as a an example of judicial restraint.
Commentary:
- Analysis: Handing off the DNA issue
- Justices Reject Inmate Right to DNA Tests
