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Oral arguments in two cases with Texas connections scheduled for fall Supreme Court term

One case challenges the Indian Child Welfare Act and the other is concerned with when prisoners can seek DNA testing.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court released a schedule of 13 cases it will hear in its new term from October through November, including a case involving DNA testing in Texas and a Fort Worth couple’s attempts to adopt Native American children, challenging the Indian Child Welfare Act.

The first case with Texas connections that will be heard is Reed vs. Goertz on Oct. 11. The case considers an appeal from inmate Rodney Reed, who was sentenced to death in Texas more than 20 years ago over the 1996 murder and rape of Stacey Stites in Bastrop County. Reed has maintained his innocence since being found guilty of the crimes.

The Supreme Court will decide when prisoners can pursue requests for DNA testing of crime-scene evidence post-conviction. In Reed’s case some crime-scene evidence, like Stites’ clothes and the belt used to strangle her, was not tested for DNA during the investigation. He pursued claims for testing after conviction but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has repeatedly denied those, arguing he waited too long.

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The justices will also hear arguments in Haaland vs. Brackeen, which will be consolidated with three similar cases on Nov. 9.

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The court will decide the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law intended to protect Native American families from separation and which creates a preference that Native American children removed from their parents be placed with extended family or in Native foster homes.

All four cases stem from the efforts of a white Fort Worth couple, Chad and Jennifer Brackeen, to adopt a Navajo child they had fostered. The couple filed a lawsuit arguing that ICWA violated their right to Equal Protection after a court ordered the child go to a Native American home.

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U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American person to hold a cabinet secretary position, pushed back against these claims, arguing that being Native American is not a race classification but a political one, thereby exempting it from the Equal Protection clause.

She, along with other advocates of the law, argue it advances the government’s interest in the welfare of Native American children and families.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton along with attorney generals in Louisiana and Indiana have also signed onto lawsuits seeking to dismantle ICWA.

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Perhaps some of the most high-profile cases in the schedule are Students for Fair Admissions vs. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions vs. President and Fellows of Harvard College, which involve challenges to the inclusion of race in college admissions. The cases, while similar, will be heard separately Oct. 31.

Additional cases the court agreed to take on but are not scheduled may be heard later in the term. These include a case for which Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has led congressional support that challenges a Colorado LGBT anti-discrimination law.