We will hear argument this morning in case 23708.09 Gutierrez v. Signs.

Ms. Fisher.

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court, this Court recently held that Texas

prisoner Rodney Reed has standing to challenge certain procedures contained in the Texas

Post-Conviction Statute, known as Chapter 64,

because a declaratory judgment that those procedures were unconstitutional would redress

Mr. Reed's injury by eliminating the prosecutor's reliance on those same procedures as a reason

to deny testing. This Court should hold that Mr. Gutierrez has standing for the same reason.

The injury here is redressable because a declaratory judgment that finds certain procedures in Chapter 64

unconstitutional eliminates those statutory procedures as a lawful reason for respondents to forbid testing.

But even if this Court should apply a more searching inquiry, Mr. Gutierrez would still have

standing. It is important to remember that the declaratory judgment at issue here does more

than simply focus on the availability of DNA testing to show death ineligibility.

It recognizes the inherent conflict between the Chapter 64 statute and the habeas death

ineligibility statute, and it requires that the procedures for obtaining DNA testing

do not obstruct the right that Texas has given prisoners to seek habeas

relief based on newly developed evidence. The CCA has never considered what procedures

in Chapter 64 are necessary to cure the constitutional infirmity found by the district court.

Nor has it ever determined whether Mr. Gutierrez would be able to

access DNA evidence under a constitutional version of the statute. None of the reasons given

by respondents for denying access to the evidence are independent of the due process violation

found by the district court.

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