Gutierrez v. Saenz (606 U.S. 305, 2025)

PRELIMINARY PRINT Volume 606 U. S. Part 1 Pages 305–356 OFFICIAL REPORTS OF THE SUPREME COURT June 26, 2025 Page Proof Pending Publication REBECCA A. WOMELDORF reporter of decisions NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors. OCTOBER TERM, 2024 305 Syllabus GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ et al. certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fth circuit No. 23–7809. Argued February 24, 2025—Decided June 26, 2025 In 1998, Texas charged Ruben Gutierrez with capital murder for his involvement in the killing of Escolastica Harrison. The State's theory at trial was that Gutierrez wielded one of the two screwdrivers used to stab Harrison to death in her mobile home. The jury convicted Gutier- rez of capital murder. At the sentencing phase of Gutierrez's trial, the jury was required to answer whether Texas proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Gutierrez “actually caused” Harrison's death or, if not, that he “intended to kill [her]” or “anticipated that a human life would be taken.” Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 37.071(2)(b)(2). The jury an- swered yes, and Gutierrez was sentenced to death. For nearly 15 years, Gutierrez has sought DNA testing of evidence he claims would prove he was not in Harrison's home the night of the murder. Texas's Article 64 allows DNA testing where a “convicted per- Page Proof Pending Publication son establishes by a preponderance of the evidence” that he “would not have been convicted if exculpatory results had been obtained through DNA testing,” among other criteria. Art. 64.03(a)(2). Invoking Arti- cle 64, Gutierrez twice moved in state court for DNA testing of untested crime scene evidence. The trial court denied his frst request in 2010, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) affrmed. The court reasoned that even if Gutierrez's DNA was not found on the tested items, that would not establish his innocence of capital murder because he would still be a party to the robbery that resulted in Harrison's death. The court concluded that Gutierrez could not use Article 64 to show he was wrongly sentenced to death unless he could also establish his innocence of the underlying crime. In 2019, Gutierrez again sought DNA testing, but Texas courts denied his motion. On appeal, the TCCA reiterated that DNA testing was not available to show only death penalty ineligibility. Gutierrez then fled suit in federal court under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against Luis Saenz, the district attorney who has custody of the untes- ted evidence. Gutierrez argued that Texas's DNA testing procedures violated his liberty interests in utilizing state postconviction proce- dures. The District Court agreed and granted declaratory relief, fnd- ing it fundamentally unfair that Texas gives prisoners the right to chal- lenge their death sentence through habeas petitions but prevents them 306 GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ Syllabus from obtaining DNA testing to support those petitions unless they can establish innocence of the underlying crime. The Fifth Circuit vacated the District Court's judgment and held that Gutierrez lacked standing to bring his § 1983 suit, fnding that his claimed injury was not redressable because a declaratory judgment would be unlikely to cause the prosecu- tor to “reverse course and allow testing.” 93 F. 4th 267, 272. Held: Gutierrez has standing to bring his § 1983 claim challenging Texas's postconviction DNA testing procedures under the Due Process Clause. Pp. 314–321. (a) Individuals convicted of crimes in state court “have a liberty in- terest in demonstrating [their] innocence with new evidence under state law.” District Attorney's Offce for Third Judicial Dist. v. Osborne, 557 U. S. 52, 68. For that reason, a state-created right to postconviction procedures can sometimes create rights to other procedures essential to realizing the state-created right. In Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U. S. 521, the Court held that a Texas prisoner could fle a due process claim under § 1983 against a prosecutor where the prisoner alleged that the prosecu- tor's refusal to turn over evidence deprived him of his liberty interests in utilizing state procedures to obtain reversal of his conviction or to obtain a pardon or reduction of his sentence. The Court reasoned that, Page Proof Pending Publication while the prisoner could not challenge in federal court the state court decisions denying his Article 64 motions, he could allege in a federal § 1983 action that Article 64 unconstitutionally prevented him from ob- taining such testing. The question of a state prisoner's standing to bring a due process claim against the custodian of his evidence was frst addressed in Reed v. Goertz, 598 U. S. 230, where the Court confronted another challenge to Texas's postconviction DNA testing law. Reed alleged, among other things, that Article 64's chain-of-custody requirement was unconstitu- tional and effectively prevented many individuals from obtaining DNA testing. The Court held that Reed had standing to pursue declaratory relief. First, Reed adequately alleged an injury: denial of access to the requested evidence. Second, the state prosecutor caused Reed's injury by denying access to the evidence. Finally, if a federal court concluded that Texas's postconviction DNA testing procedures violate due process, the state prosecutor's justifcation for denying DNA testing would be eliminated, thereby removing the barrier between Reed and the re- quested testing. The same is true here. Like Reed, Gutierrez alleges that the local prosecutor's denial of his DNA testing request deprived him of his liberty interests in utilizing state procedures to obtain an acquittal or sentence reduction. As in Reed, the declaratory judgment Gutierrez seeks would redress that injury by changing the legal status Cite as: 606 U. S. 305 (2025) 307 Syllabus of the parties and eliminating the state prosecutor's allegedly unlawful justifcation for denying DNA testing. Pp. 314–316. (b) The Fifth Circuit recognized the clear parallels between this case and Reed but distinguished the cases, reasoning that the local prosecu- tor in this case was unlikely to allow testing even if a federal court declared that Texas may not deny DNA testing that would affect only the punishment stage. Respondents, too, argue that Gutierrez lacks standing because the District Court's reason for declaring part of Arti- cle 64 unconstitutional was only one of several independent state-law grounds supporting the prosecutor's decision to deny access to the evi- dence. But this attempt to distinguish Reed fails twice over. First, to the extent the Fifth Circuit based its assessment of redress- ability on the declaratory judgment the District Court later issued, rather than Gutierrez's complaint, it turned the Article III standing in- quiry on its head. Gutierrez's standing does not depend on the relief the District Court ultimately granted on the merits. The proper focus of the standing inquiry is the complaint, and Gutierrez's complaint chal- lenges not just Article 64's limitation to actual innocence claims, but also the other barriers Article 64 erects between Gutierrez and DNA testing. Second, and more fundamentally, the Fifth Circuit erred in transforming Page Proof Pending Publication the redressability inquiry into a guess about whether a favorable court decision will ultimately result in the prosecutor turning over the DNA evidence. In Reed, the Court reasoned that, if a federal court concludes that Texas's postconviction DNA testing procedures violate due process, that court order would redress the injury by eliminating the state prose- cutor's reliance on Article 64 as a reason for denying DNA testing. The same is true here. A declaratory judgment in Gutierrez's favor would redress his injury by removing the allegedly unconstitutional barrier Article 64 erected between Gutierrez and the requested testing. The Court in Reed was unmoved by the prosecutor's assertion that a declara- tory judgment would not change his ultimate decision to turn over the evidence. The reason is simple: That a prosecutor might eventually fnd another reason to deny a prisoner's DNA testing request does not eliminate the prisoner's standing to argue that the cited reasons vio- lated his rights under the Due Process Clause. Pp. 316–320. (c) Respondents also assert that this case is now moot because the state prosecutor refused Gutierrez's DNA testing request even after the District Court issued the declaratory judgment. That claim fails, too. A procedural due process claim like Gutierrez's is not mooted by the defendant's mid-appeal promise that, regardless of the lawsuit's out- come, the ultimate result will remain the same. Holding otherwise would allow defendants to manufacture mootness by ensuring that, no matter what procedures a court requires them to employ, the same sub- 308 GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ Opinion of the Court stantive outcome will follow. Article III requires no such result. Pp. 320–321. 93 F. 4th 267, reversed and remanded. Sotomayor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Jackson, JJ., joined, and in which Barrett, J., joined as to all but Part II–B–2. Barrett, J., fled an opin- ion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, post, p. 321. Thomas, J., fled a dissenting opinion, post, p. 322. Alito, J., fled a dis- senting opinion, in which Thomas and Gorsuch, JJ., joined, post, p. 338. Anne Elizabeth Fisher argued the cause for petitioner. With her on the briefs were Lisa Evans Lewis, Joseph W. Luby, and Joanne M. Heisey. William F. Cole, Deputy Solicitor General of Texas, ar- gued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Ken Paxton, Attorney General, Aaron L. Nielson, Solicitor General, Brent Webster, First Assistant Attorney General, Cameron Fraser, Assistant Solicitor General, and Eric Abels Page Proof Pending Publication and Jefferson D. Clendenin, Assistant Attorneys General.* Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the Court. For nearly 15 years, petitioner Ruben Gutierrez has sought DNA testing of evidence that, he says, will help him prove he was never at the scene of the murder he was con- victed of committing. When the local prosecutor refused to test the evidence in his custody, Gutierrez fled suit under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, arguing that Texas's pro- *Elizabeth B. Wydra and Brianne J. Gorod fled a brief for the Constitu- tional Accountability Center as amicus curiae urging reversal. A brief of amici curiae urging affrmance was fled for the State of Arkansas et al. by Tim Griffn, Attorney General of Arkansas, and Dylan L. Jacobs, Interim Solicitor General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Steve Marshall of Alabama, Treg Taylor of Alaska, Theodore E. Rokita of Indiana, Brenna Bird of Iowa, Russell Coleman of Kentucky, Liz Murrill of Louisiana, Lynn Fitch of Mississippi, Michael T. Hilgers of Nebraska, Dave Yost of Ohio, Gentner Drummond of Oklahoma, Alan Wilson of South Carolina, Jonathan Skrmetti of Ten- nessee, and Derek Brown of Utah. Cite as: 606 U. S. 305 (202) 309 Opinion of the Court cedures for obtaining DNA testing violated his rights under the Due Process Clause. The District Court agreed and granted a declaratory judgment to that effect. The Fifth Circuit, however, held that Gutierrez lacked standing to bring his § 1983 suit, reasoning that, even if a federal court declared Texas's procedures unconstitutional, the local prosecutor would be unlikely to turn over the physi- cal evidence for DNA testing. That holding contravenes Reed v. Goertz, 598 U. S. 230 (2023), where this Court decided on analogous facts that another Texas prisoner had standing to sue the local prosecutor who denied him access to DNA testing. Id., at 234. Put simply, Reed held that a federal court order declaring “that Texas's post-conviction DNA testing procedures violate due process” would redress the prisoner's claimed injury by “eliminat[ing]” the state prose- cutor's reliance on Article 64 as a reason for denying DNA testing. Ibid.; see Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 64.01 Page Proof Pending Publication (Vernon 2018). The same is true here and the Court there- fore reverses. I A In 1998, Texas charged Ruben Gutierrez with capital mur- der for the killing of Escolastica Harrison at her mobile home in Brownsville, Texas. The State's theory at trial was that Harrison had been stabbed to death with two different screwdrivers. To support its view that Gutierrez wielded one of the two screwdrivers in question, the State introduced a statement Gutierrez gave to the police, in which he ac- knowledged that he and two accomplices had planned to rob Harrison on the day she was killed and that he had been in Harrison's home while one of his accomplices stabbed her. The jury convicted Gutierrez of capital murder. Texas law provides that a criminal defendant can be guilty of capital murder even where he was merely a party to a crime (such as robbery) that resulted in a person's death. 310 GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ Opinion of the Court Tex. Penal Code Ann. §§ 7.01, 7.02, 19.02, 19.03 (West 2021 and Cum. Supp. 2024). A death sentence, however, may be imposed only if “the defendant actually caused the death of the deceased[,] . . . intended to kill the deceased or . . . antici- pated that a human life would be taken.” Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 37.071(2)(b)(2) (Vernon 2006); see also John- son v. State, 853 S. W. 2d 527, 535 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992) (en banc) (“The Texas capital murder scheme does not allow an individual to be put to death for merely being a party to a murder”). To that end, the jury was required at the sen- tencing phase of Gutierrez's trial to answer whether Texas proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Gutierrez “actually caused” Harrison's death or, if not, that he “intended to kill [her]” or “anticipated that a human life would be taken.” Art. 37.071(2)(b)(2). The jury answered yes, and Gutierrez was sentenced to death. Gutierrez has long maintained that the police coerced him Page Proof Pending Publication into confessing that he was in Harrison's home on the night of the murder. He insists that, as he twice told the police before the statement in which he purportedly confessed, he never entered the mobile home that night. Although Gutier- rez never disputed that he and two accomplices planned to rob Harrison, he contends that he thought his accomplices would merely rob Harrison's empty mobile home and that no one would be harmed during the robbery. He accordingly asserts that he should never have been sentenced to death, and intends to seek vacatur of his death sentence in a state habeas petition. See Art. 11.071(5)(a)(3) (Vernon Cum. Supp. 2024). Since 2010, Gutierrez has sought DNA testing of crime- scene evidence, including Harrison's nail scrapings, a loose hair, and various blood samples, to help him prove it was his accomplices, not Gutierrez, in Harrison's home on the night of her murder. He maintains that Texas's Article 64 entitles him to such DNA testing. Art. 64.01(a)(1). That law pro- vides for DNA testing where a “convicted person establishes by a preponderance of the evidence” that he “would not have Cite as: 606 U. S. 305 (202) 311 Opinion of the Court been convicted if exculpatory results had been obtained through DNA testing” and that the request was “not made to unreasonably delay the execution of sentence or adminis- tration of justice.” Art. 64.03(a)(2). To grant a motion for DNA testing under Article 64, the state court must also fnd, among other things, that the evidence “is in a condition mak- ing DNA testing possible” and that “identity was or is an issue in the case.” Art. 64.03(a)(1). Invoking Article 64, Gutierrez twice moved in state court for an order requiring the local district attorney to turn over the untested crime scene evidence for DNA testing. The trial court denied his frst request in 2010, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) affrmed. Ex parte Gu- tierrez, 337 S. W. 3d 883, 886 (2011). The TCCA reasoned that, even if Gutierrez's DNA was not present on the tested items, that would not establish his innocence of Texas capital murder. Id., at 899, 901. After all, even if he was not in Page Proof Pending Publication the home, Gutierrez could still be a party to the robbery that eventually resulted in Harrison's death. Id., at 901. And, as the TCCA saw it, Gutierrez could not invoke Article 64 to establish that he had been wrongly sentenced to death unless he could also establish his innocence of the underlying crime. Ibid. Finally, the court added: “[E]ven if [Article] 64 did apply to evidence that might affect the punishment stage as well as conviction,” Gutierrez “still would not be entitled to testing” because “the record facts” show that “he played a major role in the underlying robbery and that his acts showed a reckless indifference to human life.” Ibid. Gutierrez tried again in 2019, this time bolstered by new counsel and new evidence that, according to Gutierrez, would implicate Harrison's nephew, Avel Cuellar, as one of the two people who stabbed Harrison to death. In the interim, Fer- min Cuellar (Avel Cuellar's nephew), had signed a sworn statement averring that his uncle Avel approached him in the summer of 1998 about stealing “ `a lot' ” of money from Harrison. App. 701a. Fermin also averred that, after the 312 GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ Opinion of the Court murder, Avel boasted to Fermin that he had money buried in the trailer park. Again, the Texas courts denied Gutierrez's motion. On appeal, the TCCA reiterated that DNA testing was not available to show ineligibility for the death penalty and that, “ `even if [it were],' ” Gutierrez “ `still would not be entitled to testing.' ” Gutierrez v. State, 2020 WL 918669, *7–*9 (Feb. 26, 2020) (per curiam). B Gutierrez next fled this federal action for declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. He sued respond- ent Luis Saenz, the district attorney who has custody of the evidence Gutierrez would like tested and whose offce prose- cuted Gutierrez. Gutierrez's complaint alleges that, “[b]y refusing to release the biological evidence for testing, and thereby preventing [Gutierrez] from gaining access to excul- patory evidence that could have led to his acquittal [or] dem- Page Proof Pending Publication onstrated that he is not death eligible,” the district attorney “deprived” him “of his liberty interests in utilizing state [postconviction] procedures . . . in violation of his right to due process of law.” App. 457a–458a. Gutierrez's complaint pinpoints at least three features of Article 64 that prevented him from gaining access to the rel- evant evidence to which, he says, the Due Process Clause entitles him. First, Gutierrez says, the Texas courts inter- pret Article 64 to impose a virtually insurmountable barrier to obtaining DNA testing, deeming a prisoner ineligible as long as the record contains any evidence, no matter how minor, that he committed the crime. Id., at 449a, 451a. Second, and relatedly, he asserts that it was unfair for the TCCA not to consider new evidence he had proffered since his trial: A fair procedure, he contends, would require consid- ering the effect exculpatory DNA evidence would have on a jury that also heard “new evidence casting doubt on [Gutier- rez's] statement” to the police. Id., at 452a, n. 8. Third, Gutierrez asserts that, as interpreted by the TCCA, Article Cite as: 606 U. S. 305 (202) 313 Opinion of the Court 64 violates the Due Process Clause by forbidding DNA test- ing when its sole purpose is to establish that a defendant is ineligible for the death penalty. Id., at 456a. The District Court agreed with Gutierrez in part. 565 F. Supp. 3d 892 (SD Tex. 2021). It is fundamentally unfair, the court declared, that Texas gives prisoners the right to fle a habeas petition challenging their death sentence, but pre- cludes them from obtaining DNA testing to support that ha- beas petition unless they can establish innocence of the un- derlying crime. Id., at 911. That limitation renders the habeas right “illusory” because few people can make a clear showing that they were wrongly sentenced to death without DNA evidence. Id., at 910–911. “Due process,” the court explained, “does not countenance procedural sleight of hand whereby a state extends a right with one hand and then takes it away with another.” Id., at 911. On appeal, a divided panel of the Fifth Circuit vacated the Page Proof Pending Publication District Court's declaratory judgment, reasoning that Gutie- rrez's claimed injury was not redressable because the declar- atory judgment would be unlikely to cause the prosecutor to “reverse course and allow testing.” 93 F. 4th 267, 272 (2024). The court recognized that, just two years ago, this Court rejected a nearly identical argument in Reed, 598 U. S. 230. See 93 F. 4th, at 273–274, and n. 3. Yet the Fifth Cir- cuit purported to distinguish Reed because, in Gutierrez's case, the TCCA “effectively anticipated an unfavorable fed- eral court ruling” when it held that, even if Article 64 ap- plied to claims affecting death eligibility, the facts in the trial record would still not entitle Gutierrez to DNA testing. 93 F. 4th, at 275. Judge Higginson dissented, noting that he saw no “meaningful distinction” between this case and Reed. 93 F. 4th, at 275. While Gutierrez's request for rehearing was pending in the Fifth Circuit, Texas scheduled his execution. This Court stayed his execution and granted certiorari to consider Gu- tierrez's standing to bring his § 1983 claim. 603 U. S. 949 314 GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ Opinion of the Court (2024). Because Reed plainly establishes that he does, the Court now reverses. II A Individuals convicted of crimes in state court “have a lib- erty interest in demonstrating [their] innocence with new ev- idence under state law.” District Attorney's Offce for Third Judicial Dist. v. Osborne, 557 U. S. 52, 68 (2009). For that reason, a state-created right to postconviction proce- dures can, “ `in some circumstances, beget yet other rights to procedures essential to the realization of the parent right.' ” Ibid.1 To that end, this Court held in Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U. S. 521 (2011), that a Texas prisoner could fle a due process claim under § 1983 against a prosecutor who refused “ `to release . . . biological evidence for testing.' ” Id., at 530. In that case, Skinner had alleged that the prosecutor's Page Proof Pending Publication refusal to turn over evidence deprived him of “ `his liberty interests in utilizing state procedures to obtain reversal of his conviction and/or to obtain a pardon or reduction of his sentence.' ” Ibid. This Court reasoned that, while Skinner could not challenge in federal court the TCCA decisions de- nying his Article 64 motions, he could allege in a § 1983 ac- tion that Article 64 unconstitutionally prevented him from obtaining such testing. Id., at 532. Skinner did not explicitly address a state prisoner's stand- ing to bring a due process claim against the custodian of his 1 One of the dissents contends that this Court “ha[d] no business inter- vening in this case in the frst place” because “Gutierrez's suit rests on the premise that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause gives him a `liberty interest' in Texas's voluntarily created procedures.” Post, at 322 (opinion of Thomas, J.). Even if the merits of Gutierrez's due process claim were relevant to the standing question at issue here (they are not), Osborne squarely forecloses Justice Thomas's view of that claim. See 557 U. S., at 68; see also, e. g., Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 558 (1974) (“[L]iberty,” like property, is protected by the Constitution, “even when the liberty itself is a statutory creation of the State”). Cite as: 606 U. S. 305 (202) 315 Opinion of the Court evidence. That question was frst raised in Reed, where this Court confronted another claim that Texas's postconviction DNA testing law failed to guarantee procedural due process. 598 U. S., at 233. Rodney Reed alleged, among other things, that Article 64's “stringent chain-of-custody requirement was unconstitutional and in effect foreclosed DNA testing for individuals convicted before `rules governing the State's handling and storage of evidence were put in place.' ” Ibid. Before this Court, the local prosecutor argued that Reed lacked Article III standing. Specifcally, the prosecutor as- serted that a favorable court decision would not redress Reed's injury. That was because, in the prosecutor's view, a federal court's “declaration that the statutory provision [he] attack[s] is unconstitutional” would not “ `likely' ” cause the district attorney to turn over the physical evidence in his possession. Brief for Respondents 38–39; Reed, 598 U. S. 230; California v. Texas, 593 U. S. 659, 673 (2021). Page Proof Pending Publication This Court disagreed and held that Reed had established standing to pursue the declaratory judgment action. First, the Court explained, “Reed suffciently alleged an injury in fact: denial of access to the requested evidence.” 598 U. S., at 234. Second, “[t]he state prosecutor, who is the named defendant, denied access to the evidence and thereby caused Reed's injury.” Ibid. Finally, the Court reasoned, “if a federal court concludes that Texas's post-conviction DNA testing procedures violate due process, that court order would eliminate the state prosecutor's justifcation for deny- ing DNA testing” and thereby remove the barrier between Reed and the requested DNA testing. Ibid. The same is true of Gutierrez's suit. Like Reed and Skin- ner, Gutierrez alleges that the local prosecutor's denial of his request for DNA testing deprived him of “his liberty inter- ests in utilizing state procedures to obtain an acquittal and/ or reduction of his sentence, in violation of his right to due process of law.” App. 458a. As in Reed, moreover, the de- claratory judgment Gutierrez seeks would redress that in- 316 GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ Opinion of the Court jury by “ `order[ing] a change in [the] legal status' ” of the parties and “eliminat[ing]” the state prosecutor's allegedly unlawful “justifcation for denying DNA testing.” 598 U. S., at 234. That is suffcient to resolve this case. B 1 The Fifth Circuit recognized the clear parallels between this case and Reed. See 93 F. 4th, at 272, 274, n. 3. Never- theless, the court thought that, unlike in Reed, the local prosecutor here was unlikely to allow testing even if a fed- eral court “declare[d] Texas may not deny DNA testing that would affect only the punishment stage.” 93 F. 4th, at 272. Because the TCCA already concluded Gutierrez would not be entitled to DNA testing even if Article 64 did apply to evidence affecting only the punishment stage, the Fifth Cir- cuit reasoned that the district attorney would “quite likely” Page Proof Pending Publication rely on that holding to deny testing again. Id., at 274. Re- spondents, joined by the principal dissent, similarly urge that Gutierrez lacks standing because the District Court's reason for declaring part of Article 64 unconstitutional “was only one of several independent state-law grounds support- ing District Attorney Saenz's decision to deny access to the requested evidence.” Brief for Respondents 24; see also post, at 348–349 (opinion of Alito, J.). This attempt to distinguish Reed is wrong twice over. First, both respondents and the Fifth Circuit gloss over the substance of Gutierrez's complaint, which is the proper focus of the standing inquiry here. See Davis v. Federal Election Comm'n, 554 U. S. 724, 734 (2008). Gutierrez's complaint takes issue not just with Article 64's limitation to actual in- nocence claims, but with the barrier Article 64 erects be- tween Gutierrez and DNA testing. At bottom, Gutierrez as- serts that, to the extent Texas law precludes him from obtaining the requested evidence, it violates his rights under the Due Process Clause. App. 457a–458a. That is why his Cite as: 606 U. S. 305 (202) 317 Opinion of the Court complaint alleges, among other things, that Article 64 poses a “virtually impossible [standard] for anyone convicted under the law of parties to obtain DNA testing,” id., at 453a, and why he takes issue with the TCCA's refusal to consider “newly proffered evidence” in assessing claims like his own, id., at 452a, n. 8.2 To the extent the Fifth Circuit based its assessment of redressability on the declaratory judgment the District Court later issued, rather than Gutierrez's com- plaint, it turned the Article III standing inquiry on its head. Gutierrez's “standing to bring this suit,” 93 F. 4th, at 271, does not depend on the relief the District Court granted on the merits. The principal dissent does not dispute that Gutierrez chal- lenged, in his complaint, each of the roadblocks Article 64 placed between himself and DNA testing. Post, at 350 (opinion of Alito, J.). Instead, the dissent repeats the Fifth Circuit's error, urging that Gutierrez can now obtain only Page Proof Pending Publication “reinstatement of the District Court's declaratory judg- ment.” Post, at 347. But rather than assert that the scope of the declaratory judgment retroactively deprived the Dis- trict Court of jurisdiction over Gutierrez's complaint, as the Fifth Circuit erroneously held, the principal dissent suggests instead that “affrmance of the District Court's declaratory 2 The principal dissent highlights the TCCA's rule “ that only evi- dence in the trial record may be considered in determining whether post- conviction DNA testing is allowed.” Post, at 354 (opinion of Alito, J.). That construction of Texas law is, of course, what Gutierrez has challenged under the Due Process Clause. See supra, at 312. In Gutierrez's view, that new evidence, together with the DNA testing, will help him establish that he did not in fact “anticipat[e] that a human life would be taken,” Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 37.071(2)(b)(2), and that his death sentence must therefore be vacated. Contra, post, at 354 (Alito, J., dissenting) (insisting that “a favorable decision on Gutierrez's constitutional argument would not bolster his challenge to his sentence”). That the principal dis- sent is skeptical about the merits of Gutierrez's due process challenge is not pertinent because the Court only granted certiorari to consider Gutier- rez's Article III standing to bring his suit. See ibid. 318 GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ Opinion of the Court judgment” would not help Gutierrez moving forward. Post, at 350. That argument, however, does nothing to support the Fifth Circuit's holding, which the principal dissent de- fends, that Gutierrez lacked “standing to bring this suit.” 93 F. 4th, at 271.3 2 Second, and more fundamentally, the Fifth Circuit erred in transforming the redressability inquiry into a guess as to whether a favorable court decision will in fact ultimately cause the prosecutor to turn over the evidence. Id., at 274. In Reed, just like in this case, the Texas courts had proffered multiple reasons for denying Reed's Article 64 motion, in- cluding that “Reed did not demonstrate that he would have been acquitted if the DNA results were exculpatory,” 598 U. S., at 233, and that Reed “failed to establish that his re- quest [was] not made to unreasonably delay the execution of his sentence,” Reed v. State, 541 S. W. 3d 759, 778 (Tex. Crim. Page Proof Pending Publication App. 2017). The principal dissent claims that, for Reed, “striking down the chain-of-custody rule” would have “criti- cally undermined the TCCA's holding” as to “[t]wenty-one additional items,” which “could have been considered” if the declaratory judgment issued in his favor. Post, at 352. Yet 3 As the principal dissent sees it, the Fifth Circuit held only that Gutier- rez lacked standing to press one of his arguments in favor of Article 64's unconstitutionality: that “ `the state violates due process by . . . preventing testing if resulting evidence would be relevant only to the sentence.' ” Post, at 348, n. 7 (quoting 93 F. 4th, at 271). Even if that particular argu- ment about Article 64's unlawfulness could be disentangled from the rest of Gutierrez's due process claim, see supra, at 312–313, 316, however, the dissent never embraces the Fifth Circuit's view that Gutierrez lacked “standing to bring this suit” in the District Court, 93 F. 4th, at 271. In- stead, it suggests that Gutierrez lacked standing to seek “affrmance of th[at] claim” from the Fifth Circuit. Post, at 348, n. 7. It was the district attorney, not Gutierrez, who sought relief from the Fifth Circuit, and there is no reason to think the Courts of Appeals must dismiss a case for lack of standing simply because the nonappealing party did not cross-appeal the scope of the District Court's judgment. Cite as: 606 U. S. 305 (202) 319 Opinion of the Court even absent the chain-of-custody rule, Reed still faced the TCCA's assessment that his DNA testing request was “un- timely,” 541 S. W. 3d, at 778, and the trial court's determina- tion that “exculpatory results from DNA testing of all the evidence he requested to be tested” would not establish his innocence, id., at 773. This Court nevertheless reasoned in Reed that, “if a federal court concludes that Texas's post- conviction DNA testing procedures violate due process,” that court order would redress his injury by “eliminat[ing]” the state prosecutor's reliance on Article 64 as a reason for denying DNA testing. 598 U. S., at 234. The particular de- claratory judgment Reed requested was thus no more likely to yield a change in the district attorney's conduct than the one Gutierrez sought here. Contra, post, at 347, 351–354 (opinion of Alito, J.). What was true in Reed thus applies here, too. There is little doubt that Saenz considers Article 64 in his assessment Page Proof Pending Publication of whether to provide requested DNA evidence. Indeed, Saenz confrmed at oral argument that he would likely “turn over the evidence” if he thought Article 64 entitled Gutierrez to DNA testing. Tr. of Oral Arg. 71. A declaratory judg- ment in Gutierrez's favor would accordingly redress his in- jury by removing the allegedly unconstitutional barrier Arti- cle 64 erected between Gutierrez and the requested testing. To be sure, Saenz nevertheless states that any declaratory judgment will not affect his ultimate willingness to turn over the evidence. He and the principal dissent urge that the Court need not even “speculate” about what he might do because, “[a]fter securing a declaratory judgment from the district court,” Gutierrez again sought DNA testing and “Saenz refused.” Brief for Respondents 27; see post, at 350 (opinion of Alito, J.). This, again, is a familiar refrain. The prosecutor in Reed, too, maintained that a declaratory judg- ment would not “ `bring about' ” “ `any change in [his] con- duct.' ” Brief for Respondents 38–39; Reed, 598 U. S., at 249 (Thomas, J., dissenting). This Court was unmoved by that 320 GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ Opinion of the Court assertion. See id., at 234. The reason is simple: That a prosecutor might eventually fnd another reason, grounded in Article 64 or elsewhere, to deny a prisoner's request for DNA testing does not vitiate his standing to argue that the cited reasons violated his rights under the Due Process Clause. See, e. g., Federal Election Comm'n v. Akins, 524 U. S. 11, 25 (1998) (“[T]hose adversely affected by a discre- tionary agency decision generally have standing to complain that the agency based its decision upon an improper legal ground . . . even though the agency . . . might later, in the exercise of its lawful discretion, reach the same result for a different reason”); Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 572, n. 7 (1992) (“[U]nder our case law, one living adja- cent to the site for proposed construction of a federally li- censed dam has standing to challenge the licensing agency's failure to prepare an environmental impact statement, even though he cannot establish with any certainty that the state- Page Proof Pending Publication ment will cause the license to be withheld or altered . . . ”). C Finally, Saenz asserts in the alternative that this case is now moot because Saenz refused Gutierrez's request for DNA testing even after the District Court issued the declar- atory judgment. Brief for Respondents 42–44. That claim fails, too. As Saenz himself recognizes, “a case `becomes moot only when it is impossible for a court to grant any effec- tual relief whatever to the prevailing party.' ” Chafn v. Chafn, 568 U. S. 165, 172 (2013) (quoting Knox v. Service Employees, 567 U. S. 298, 307 (2012)). It is not enough that “the practical impact of any decision is not assured.” 568 U. S., at 175. In any event, a procedural due process claim like the one Gutierrez presses is not mooted by the defendant's mid- appeal promise that, no matter the result of a lawsuit, the ultimate outcome will not change. Holding otherwise would Cite as: 606 U. S. 305 (2025) 321 Opinion of Barrett, J. allow all manner of defendants to manufacture mootness by ensuring that, no matter what procedures a court requires the defendant to employ, the same substantive outcome will result. In that world, the person “living adjacent to the site for proposed construction of a federally licensed dam” would lose her claim “to challenge the licensing agency's failure to prepare an environmental impact statement” as long as the agency promised that the statement would not cause the li- cense to be withheld or altered. Lujan, 504 U. S., at 572, n. 7. Article III mandates no such result. * * * In the end, Reed is indistinguishable. Gutierrez has standing to challenge Texas's DNA testing procedures under the Due Process Clause. The judgment of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with Page Proof Pending Publication this opinion. It is so ordered. Justice Barrett, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. When the Fifth Circuit attempted to distinguish this case from Reed v. Goertz, 598 U. S. 230 (2023), it failed to consider the breadth of the relief that Gutierrez requested in his com- plaint. See ante, at 316. I would reverse on that basis alone. The Court goes further, borrowing from our some- what relaxed redressability inquiry in administrative-law procedural injury cases. See ante, at 318–320 (citing Fed- eral Election Comm'n v. Akins, 524 U. S. 11, 25 (1998); Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 572, n. 7 (1992)). By invoking Akins and Lujan in the unique context of requests for DNA evidence from Texas prosecutors, the Court muddies the waters of standing doctrine. I respect- fully join all but Part II–B–2 of the Court's opinion. 322 GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ Thomas, J., dissenting Justice Thomas, dissenting. I join Justice Alito's principal dissent because I agree that Ruben Gutierrez lacks standing to bring a federal suit alleging that Texas's post-conviction DNA testing proce- dures violate due process.1 I write separately to emphasize that this Court has no business intervening in this case in the frst place. The Constitution does not require any State to establish procedures for state prisoners to challenge the validity of their convictions after trial. Yet, Gutierrez's suit rests on the premise that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause gives him a “liberty interest” in Texas's voluntarily created procedures. That premise cannot be squared with any principled reading of the Due Process Clause. I therefore disagree with our decision to grant cer- tiorari and revive Gutierrez's challenge. Our intervention serves no purpose other than to exacerbate the already egre- gious delays endemic to capital litigation. Page Proof Pending I Publication A The Texas Constitution provides capital defendants the right to a trial by jury. Art. 1, § 10. It further provides that, after a defendant is convicted and sentenced, he may 1 I agree that the Court “fagrantly distorts the standard” that this Court articulated in Reed v. Goertz, 598 U. S. 230 (2023), by deeming irrele- vant the independent grounds that the Texas courts have given for deny- ing DNA testing to Gutierrez. Post, at 346–348 (Alito, J., dissenting). I also continue to believe that Reed made “chaos” of our standing doctrine. 598 U. S., at 255 (Thomas, J., dissenting). Even if the Texas courts had not articulated alternative grounds for denying Gutierrez testing, “an ab- stract declaration” that Texas's limits on DNA testing are unconstitutional cannot redress any injury because it does not compel any “change in con- duct” on the part of the district attorney. Id., at 249. Gutierrez's real dispute is with the Texas courts for denying his motions for testing, but the Rooker-Feldman doctrine prohibits parties from attacking state-court judgments in federal district court. See Reed, 598 U. S., at 244–252 (Thomas, J., dissenting); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U. S. 413 (1923); District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U. S. 462 (1983). Cite as: 606 U. S. 305 (2025) 323 Thomas, J., dissenting fle a direct appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA), the State's highest court for criminal cases. Art. 5, § 5(b). Texas law also allows prisoners sentenced to death to challenge their conviction and sentence collaterally by fl- ing a petition for habeas corpus in their court of conviction. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 11.071 (Vernon Cum. Supp. 2024). Even if the prisoner's trial was error free, he may obtain habeas relief under state law if he produces newly discovered evidence establishing that he is actually innocent of the offense. Ex parte Mayhugh, 512 S. W. 3d 285, 295 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016). Chapter 64 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure fur- ther allows convicted defendants to seek testing of DNA evi- dence that was in the possession of the State during trial. Arts. 64.01(a)(2)(a–1), (b) (Vernon 2018). Upon the defend- ant's motion, the convicting court may order testing if cer- tain conditions are met, including that the evidence still Page Proof Pending Publication exists in a testable condition, that the defendant can show that he likely would not have been convicted had he obtained exculpatory results from DNA testing, and that the defend- ant can show that he is not bringing the motion unreasonably to delay his execution. Art. 64.03(a). Defendants who ob- tain DNA testing may use the results to support their state habeas petitions. Thacker v. State, 177 S. W. 3d 926, 927 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005) (per curiam). B A Texas jury convicted Gutierrez and sentenced him to death for the 1998 robbery and murder of Escolastica Har- rison. Having thrice failed to obtain DNA testing under Chapter 64 in state court, he now claims that several of Chapter 64's restrictions on obtaining DNA testing violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See ante, at 311–313. To make sense of Gutierrez's claim, we must frst under- stand what rights the Due Process Clause protects. The Clause provides that no State shall “deprive any person of 324 GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ Thomas, J., dissenting life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Amdt. 14, § 1. In other words, the State cannot decide to take away an individual's life, liberty, or property unless it ad- heres to certain procedures. But, the Due Process Clause does not protect all rights—only life, liberty, and property. Thus, the frst step in any due process analysis is to deter- mine whether the right that the individual asserts falls within one of these three categories. See Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 570–571 (1972). If it does not, the “requirements” of due process do not “apply.” Ibid. By seeking to execute Gutierrez and to imprison him until his execution, Texas undoubtedly seeks to deprive Gutierrez of his life and liberty. Yet, Gutierrez rightly does not base his due process claim on either of these deprivations, because he has received far more than the process required to justify them. Under our precedents, Texas must conduct a trial Page Proof Pending Publication before it can imprison or execute a person as punishment for a crime. See Herrera v. Collins, 506 U. S. 390, 398–399 (1993). But, the “State is not required by the Federal Con- stitution to provide . . . a right to appellate review.” Griffn v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, 18 (1956) (plurality opinion); accord, id., at 21 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment); McKane v. Durston, 153 U. S. 684, 687 (1894). Nor need it provide “[p]ostconviction relief,” which “is even further removed from the criminal trial.” Pennsylvania v. Finley, 481 U. S. 551, 556–557 (1987). Texas thus gave Gutierrez at his 1999 trial all the process necessary to imprison and execute him. The ensuing quarter century of direct and collateral review has been additional process above the constitutional foor. Gutierrez instead asserts that he has a distinct “ `liberty interest' ” in Texas's “state-created right to postconviction” relief. Ante, at 314. In Gutierrez's view, part of the “lib- erty” that Texas prisoners enjoy under the Fourteenth Amendment is a right to obtain release pursuant to Texas's habeas statute, which the State takes away every time its Cite as: 606 U. S. 305 (2025) 325 Thomas, J., dissenting courts deny habeas relief. Thus, Gutierrez contends, if Texas law does not afford prisoners suffcient procedural rights to bolster their habeas petitions—such as, in his case, access to DNA testing—the State has deprived them of lib- erty without the due process of law.2 Gutierrez bases his asserted interest on this Court's deci- sion in District Attorney's Offce for Third Judicial Dist. v. Osborne, 557 U. S. 52 (2009). There, the Court concluded that a prisoner has a “postconviction liberty interest” under the Due Process Clause if state law grants him “an entitle- ment . . . to prove his innocence even after a fair trial has proved otherwise.” Id., at 67–68. II The Fourteenth Amendment does not protect Gutierrez's asserted “liberty interest.” As originally understood, “lib- erty” in the Fourteenth Amendment likely referred only to Page Proof Pending Publication freedom from physical restraint. It did not include entitle- 2 Gutierrez also claims that executive clemency is a “liberty interest” that he cannot be denied without access to DNA testing. But, “noncapital defendants do not have a liberty interest in traditional state executive clemency.” District Attorney's Offce for Third Judicial Dist. v. Osborne, 557 U. S. 52, 67 (2009); see Connecticut Bd. of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U. S. 458, 464 (1981). In Ohio Adult Parole Authority v. Woodard, 523 U. S. 272 (1998), Chief Justice Rehnquist concluded for a plurality of the Court that the same is true of capital defendants, because trial and sen- tencing extinguish the defendant's “interest in not being executed in ac- cord with his sentence.” Id., at 281. When applying for clemency, the “defendant in effect accepts the fnality of the death sentence for purposes of adjudication, and appeals for clemency as a matter of grace.” Id., at 282. Justice O'Connor, in contrast, left open the possibility that “some minimal procedural safeguards apply to clemency proceedings,” such that a due process violation “might” occur if “a state offcial fipped a coin to determine whether to grant clemency.” Id., at 289 (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment). But, even if Justice O'Connor's view is correct, Gutierrez plainly cannot rely on it to establish a due process violation. DNA testing is not necessary to make the Texas clemency process less arbitrary than a coin fip. 326 GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ Thomas, J., dissenting ments to government-created benefts. This Court's con- trary precedent stems from a conscious, policy-based rejec- tion of the Due Process Clause's original meaning. A The original meaning of “liberty” in the Fourteenth Amendment was likely far narrower than our precedents currently hold. The term originally appears to have re- ferred only to freedom from physical restraint. But, in the Lochner era, the Court began to hold that “liberty” includes fundamental rights generally. See Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45 (1905). This Court has since adhered to that broader meaning. As with any legal text, we must construe the Fourteenth Amendment according to the ordinary meaning of its terms at the time of its enactment. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188–189 (1824); T. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 55 Page Proof Pending Publication (1868). We may not defer to “demonstrably erroneous” precedents that are inconsistent with the Amendment's orig- inal meaning. Gamble v. United States, 587 U. S. 678, 717– 718 (2019) (Thomas, J., concurring). When the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868, its Due Process Clause was understood to embody an “old . . . principle” dating back to Magna Carta, the great 13th- century charter of English liberties. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 123–124 (1877). Magna Carta provided that a “free man” may not be “prosecute[d],” “imprisoned,” or “de- stroyed” except “by the law of the land.” Magna Carta, ch. 39 (1215), in A. Howard, Magna Carta: Text and Commen- tary 43 (1964). A century later, a statute interpreting this “law of the land” provision stated that “no Man” shall be “imprisoned” or “put to Death, without being brought in An- swer by due Process of the Law.” 28 Edw. III, c. 3 (1354); see also 1 E. Coke, The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England 50 (1642) (interpreting “by the Law of the Land” to be equivalent to “by due Process of the Com- mon law”). Cite as: 606 U. S. 305 (2025) 327 Thomas, J., dissenting Blackstone referred to Magna Carta's “law of the land” provision as protecting the three “absolute rights of every Englishman”: the “right of personal security,” including “life”; “the right of personal liberty”; and “the right of private property.” 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 123, 125 (1765) (Blackstone). This for- mulation “heavily” infuenced the founding generation of America. Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U. S. 644, 724 (2015) (Thomas, J., dissenting). Many early state constitutions contained provisions “that replicated Magna Carta's lan- guage, but were modifed to refer specifcally to `life, liberty, or property.' ” Ibid., and n. 3 (collecting examples). And, the Fifth Amendment similarly prohibited the Federal Gov- ernment from depriving any person “of life, liberty, or prop- erty, without due process of law.” “Liberty” in the Fifth Amendment likely refers only to freedom from physical restraint. Blackstone defned “the Page Proof Pending Publication right of personal liberty” as “the power of loco-motion, of changing situation, or removing one's person to whatsoever place one's own inclination may direct; without imprisonment or restraint, unless by due course of law.” 1 Blackstone 130. Following Blackstone, “[s]tate decisions interpreting [state due process] provisions between the founding and the ratif- cation of the Fourteenth Amendment almost uniformly con- strued the word `liberty' to refer only to freedom from physi- cal restraint.” Obergefell, 576 U. S., at 724–725 (Thomas, J., dissenting) (citing C. Warren, The New “Liberty” Under the Fourteenth Amendment, 39 Harv. L. Rev. 431, 441–445 (1926) (Warren)). In light of this history, “it is hard to see how the `liberty' protected by the [Fifth Amendment] could be interpreted to include anything broader.” 576 U. S., at 725 (Thomas, J., dissenting). “If the Fifth Amendment uses `liberty' in this narrow sense, then the Fourteenth Amendment likely does as well.” Ibid. When the language of a provision “is obviously trans- planted from another legal source, it brings the old soil with it.” Taggart v. Lorenzen, 587 U. S. 554, 560 (2019) (internal 328 GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ Thomas, J., dissenting quotation marks omitted). Applying that well-established principle, this Court has long recognized the Fourteenth Amendment's due process protections as having “the same sense” as the Fifth Amendment's. Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 534–535 (1884); accord, Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 80–81 (1873); Hibben v. Smith, 191 U. S. 310, 325 (1903); Malinski v. New York, 324 U. S. 401, 415 (1945) (opin- ion of Frankfurter, J.).3 It was not until the Lochner era that this Court adopted a broader understanding of “liberty.” During that period, stretching from 1897 to 1937, this Court relied on the “legal fction” of “substantive” due process to invalidate disfavored social and economic legislation by States. McDonald v. Chi- cago, 561 U. S. 742, 811 (2010) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Under that fction, the Due Process Clauses forbade all government infringement on “certain `fundamental' liberty interests . . . , no matter what Page Proof Pending Publication process is provided.” Reno v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 302 (1993). To make the fction work, the Court reinterpreted the Clauses' guarantee of “ `process' ” to encompass “sub- stance,” a notion that “strains credulity for even the most casual user of words.” McDonald, 561 U. S., at 811 (opinion of Thomas, J.). 3 Some decisions of this Court, while recognizing the general principle that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments' Due Process Clauses should be read together, have left open the possibility “that questions may arise in which different constructions and applications of [the Clauses] may be proper.” French v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co., 181 U. S. 324, 328 (1901). Even assuming that caveat is correct, however, reading “liberty” in the Fourteenth Amendment to mean fundamental rights generally, see infra this page and 329, would appear to render the Fourteenth Amendment so broad that it would destroy the general rule that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments should be read coextensively. And, even if “liberty” in the Fourteenth Amendment were entirely decoupled from its meaning in the Fifth Amendment, I am aware of nothing showing that the term was un- derstood to encompass government entitlements before the 1970s. See infra, at 331–334. Cite as: 606 U. S. 305 (2025) 329 Thomas, J., dissenting The Court's embrace of substantive due process also re- quired it to jettison the concept of “liberty” as only freedom from restraint, so that it could encompass other rights that the Court deemed “fundamental.” In Allgeyer v. Louisi- ana, 165 U. S. 578 (1897), this Court's frst substantive due process decision under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court for the frst time broadened the defnition of “liberty” to include the freedom of contract. Id., at 589; see Warren 445–449 (tracing the interpretation of “liberty” from the Fourteenth Amendment's ratifcation to Allgeyer). By the height of the Lochner era, the Court had stretched the term to cover “those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 399 (1923). These privi- leges included “the right of the individual to contract, to en- gage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up Page Proof Pending Publication children,” and “to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.” Ibid. This Court eventually repudiated Lochner's muscular ver- sion of substantive due process—at least for economic rights. See Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U. S. 726, 730 (1963); West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379 (1937). But, the Court continues to treat Meyer's defnition of “liberty” as authori- tative. E. g., Roth, 408 U. S., at 572. B Gutierrez's claim of a state-created “liberty interest” in ob- taining post-conviction relief is inconsistent with the original understanding of “liberty.” From the founding through the Lochner era, “liberty” was understood to be a natural, pre- political right. Such an understanding is fundamentally in- compatible with a “right” bestowed by the government. Blackstone squarely framed life, liberty, and property as natural rights that existed before government. In an ac- count “heavily infuenced” by the political theories of John 330 GUTIERREZ v. SAENZ Thomas, J., dissenting Locke, Obergefell, 576 U. S., at 726–727, n. 4 (Thomas, J., dissenting), Blackstone explained that, in the state of nature, every man has the “power of acting as [he] thinks ft, without any restraint or control.” 1 Blackstone 121. When man “enters into society, [he] gives up a part of his natural lib- erty” to enjoy the rest of it in security. Ibid. Thus, the liberty that each man enjoys as “a member of society, is no other than natural liberty so far restrained by human laws . . . as is necessary and expedient for the general advantage of the publick.” Ibid. This includes “the absolute rights” of life, liberty, and property, which exist in the “state of na- ture, and which every man is intitled to enjoy whether out of society or in it.” Id., at 119 (emphasis deleted). In other words, according to Blackstone, life, liberty, and property are rights that predate government and that were not surren- dered when government was established; they are not enti- tlements that the government can bestow by positive law. Page Proof Pending Publication Founding-era Americans shared this understanding of lib- erty. The Lockean “idea of civil liberty as natural liberty constrained by human law” “permeated the 18th-century po- litical scene in America.” Obergefell, 576 U. S., at 726–728 (Thomas, J., dissenting). For instance, the Virginia Decla- ration of Rights of 1776—“the frst of the colonial bills of rights,” Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U. S. 213, 225 (1967)—proclaimed that “all men . . . by nature” possess the “inherent rights” of “life,” “liberty,” and “property,” which they retain “when they enter into a state of society.” § I, in 1 Milestone Documents in American History 154 (P. Finkel- man ed. 2008) (Finkelman). Similarly, the Declaration of In- dependence asserts that the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” come from the “Cre- ator,” and that, “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” ¶2. The understanding of liberty as a natural right persisted until well after the enactment of the Fourteenth Amend- ment. Even as this Court expanded the notion of “liberty” Cite as: 606 U. S. 305 (2025) 331 Thomas, J., dissenting in the Lochner era, it remained faithful to the idea of liberty as “individual freedom from governmental action, not as a right to a particular governmental entitlement.” Oberge- fell, 576 U. S., at 726 (Thomas, J., dissenting). None of the liberties enumerated in Meyer, for instance, could be charac- terized as state-created benefts. See 262 U. S., at 399. To the contrary, when interpreting the Due Process Clauses, the Court distinguished between rights inherent to the individ- ual and privileges established by the government. The Court recognized, for example, that a prisoner's statutory entitlement to early release on parole was a “privilege” that “comes as an act of grace to one convicted of a crime,” not a right protected by the Due Process Clauses. Escoe v. Zerbst, 295 U. S. 490, 492–493 (1935). In short, entitlements established by the government can- not be “liberty” under the Due Process Clause of the Four- teenth Amendment. Gutierrez thus has no “liberty inter- Page Proof Pending Publication est” in Texas's state-created right to post-