221922P.pdf   06/05/2023  Stacey Johnson  v.  Tim Griffin
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  22-1922
   U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Central   
   [PUBLISHED] [Kelly, Author, with Erickson and Stras, Circuit Judges] 
   Prisoner case - Prisoner civil rights. Plaintiff, an Arkansas death row 
   inmate, sought DNA testing under Arkansas's Act 1780 (DNA testing 
   statute); the state courts denied his request because he could not meet 
   the statutory prerequisite for testing in that none of the evidence which 
   might result from the testing could advance his claim of actual innocence 
   or raise a reasonable probability that he did not commit the murder. In 
   this Section 1983 action, plaintiff alleged that Act 1780, as interpreted 
   by the Arkansas Supreme Court, violated his federal constitutional rights 
   to due process and access to the courts. The district court determined 
   that plaintiff had standing to challenge the Act on procedural due process 
   grounds and that the defendant officials were not entitled to qualified 
   immunity; defendants appeal these two rulings. Held: plaintiff has 
   sufficiently alleged an injury in fact that was caused by the defendant 
   and that would be redressed by the relief sought in his Section 1983 
   action; he thus has standing to bring his procedural due process challenge 
   to Act 1780; the defendants are not immune from suit under the Eleventh 
   Amendment because plaintiff seeks prospective declaratory and injunctive 
   relief and has alleged a sufficient connection between the defendants and 
   Act 1780's enforcement as the defendants either hold the evidence and 
   refuse to provide it or have refused to agree to DNA testing and opposed 
   plaintiff's Act 1780 petition in state court. Judge Stras, concurring.