District Attorney's Office v. Osborne
United States Supreme Court
557 U.S. 52 (2009)
Relevant factsFree
Osborne (defendant) confessed to his crime at a parole hearing but later claimed the confession was false, and sought postconviction DNA testing on crime-scene evidence, which Alaska's courts denied under the state's existing three-part test for postconviction DNA claims; when Osborne sued under Section 1983 claiming a due-process right to the testing, the federal district court and Ninth Circuit agreed and ordered the state to provide the evidence.
IssueFree
Whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides a constitutional right to postconviction DNA testing.