§ 1983 DNA-Testing Statute Challenges Survive Rooker–Feldman; Standing Lies Against the Prosecutor Who Controls Access

1. Introduction

In Reginald Chapman v. Eileen O'Neill Burke (7th Cir. Aug. 13, 2026), the Seventh Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of a prisoner’s federal constitutional challenge to Illinois’s post-conviction DNA testing statute, 725 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/116-3. Chapman—convicted in Illinois state court of murdering Angela Butler and her son—sought post-conviction DNA testing of items recovered in the investigation. Although the State’s Attorney’s Office at one point indicated agreement to testing, the state trial court sua sponte dismissed Chapman’s § 116-3 motion, and the Illinois appellate courts left that denial intact.

Chapman then sued the Cook County State’s Attorney under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that § 116-3 is facially unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause and the Sixth Amendment. The district court dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. On appeal, Burke argued both Rooker-Feldman and lack of Article III standing.

The Seventh Circuit held: (1) Chapman had standing to sue the prosecutor alleged to control access to the evidence; and (2) Rooker-Feldman did not strip federal jurisdiction because Chapman’s § 1983 suit presented an independent constitutional challenge to the statute governing the state-court decision, not an appeal of the state-court judgment itself.

2. Summary of the Opinion

  • Standing: Chapman adequately alleged traceability (causation) because the defendant prosecutor allegedly controlled access to the evidence and was refusing access/testing after the state proceedings, even if she had earlier expressed agreement to testing. The injury (denial of DNA testing) was fairly traceable to the prosecutor for standing purposes.
  • Rooker-Feldman: The doctrine did not apply because Chapman’s complaint targeted the constitutionality of § 116-3 itself, not the correctness of the state court’s denial. Requesting relief that overlaps with what was denied in state court (an order for DNA testing) does not automatically “invite review and rejection” of the state judgment.
  • Disposition: The Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded for further proceedings, leaving preclusion and merits questions to the district court.

3. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited (and How They Shaped the Decision)

1) Rooker-Feldman’s narrow scope

  • T.M. v. Univ. of Maryland Med. Sys. Corp., 146 S. Ct. 1739 (2026): The opinion frames Rooker-Feldman as a “narrow doctrine” tied to Congress’s assignment of appellate review of state judgments to the Supreme Court. The Seventh Circuit uses this to underscore that jurisdictional dismissals must be confined to the doctrine’s limited core.
  • Gilbank v. Wood Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Servs., 111 F.4th 754 (7th Cir. 2024) (en banc): This is the Seventh Circuit’s operational template. The court applies Gilbank’s multi-factor test and emphasizes Gilbank’s instruction to focus on (i) whether the state judgment itself caused the injury, and (ii) “what the plaintiff asks the federal court to do,” rather than whether the federal plaintiff previously sought similar relief in state court.
  • Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280 (2005): Exxon supplies the Supreme Court’s canonical formulation limiting Rooker-Feldman to “state-court losers” complaining of injuries “caused by state-court judgments” and “inviting” federal “review and rejection” of those judgments. The court uses Exxon to distinguish between prohibited de facto appeals and permissible independent federal claims.
  • Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923) and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983): These anchor the doctrine historically: both involved plaintiffs asking a federal district court to nullify or review state judicial determinations—classic de facto appeals.
  • Verizon Maryland, Inc. v. Pub. Serv. Comm'n of Maryland, 535 U.S. 635 (2002): Cited for the principle that district courts lack appellate jurisdiction over state judgments, reinforcing the structural, jurisdictional nature of the doctrine.
  • Sykes v. Cook Cnty. Cir. Ct. Prob. Div., 837 F.3d 736 (7th Cir. 2016) and Ghelf v. Town of Wheatland, 132 F.4th 456 (7th Cir. 2025): These are used to separate injuries caused by a state judgment from independent injuries that a state court failed to remedy. The court invokes them to confirm that independent constitutional claims remain within federal jurisdiction.

2) DNA-testing § 1983 claims as independent federal actions

  • Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521 (2011): The decision’s centerpiece. Skinner holds that a prisoner may use § 1983 to challenge the constitutionality of a state’s post-conviction DNA-testing statute and that Rooker-Feldman does not bar such a claim, even after an adverse state-court ruling. The Seventh Circuit treats Chapman’s case as materially aligned with Skinner: “a statute or rule governing the decision may be challenged in a federal action.”
  • Reed v. Goertz, 598 U.S. 230 (2023): Reed supplies two crucial points: (i) denial of DNA testing is an injury in fact; and (ii) the proper standing defendant can be the prosecutor whose denial deprives the prisoner of access/testing. Reed also reinforces that a federal claim “targeting as unconstitutional the Texas statute authoritatively construed” is not barred by Rooker-Feldman.
  • Gutierrez v. Saenz, 606 U.S. 305 (2025): Used both for the existence of a state-law-created liberty interest in demonstrating innocence with new evidence and for the proposition that a § 1983 action can be brought against a prosecutor who refuses to release biological evidence for testing. Gutierrez also supports the court’s standing analysis: a prosecutor’s ability to cite alternative reasons later does not defeat standing to challenge the constitutionality of the stated basis for denial.
  • Dist. Atty's Off. for Third Jud. Dist. v. Osborne, 557 U.S. 52 (2009): Osborne underlies the court’s due-process framing: state-created procedures for post-conviction relief can generate procedural protections essential to realizing the state-created right.
  • Huey v. Kunzweiler for Tulsa Cnty. State Att'y, 847 F. App'x 530 (10th Cir. 2021): Cited as persuasive confirmation that seeking the same DNA-testing relief in federal court does not itself create a Rooker-Feldman problem when the federal action is a constitutional challenge to the statute.

3) Standing doctrine and causation

  • Satanic Temple, Inc. v. Rokita, 163 F.4th 1061 (7th Cir. 2026): Provides the Seventh Circuit’s current articulation of standing standards and the framework for facial standing challenges.
  • TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021): Cited for the three familiar standing elements: injury in fact, traceability, redressability.
  • Apex Digit., Inc. v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 572 F.3d 440 (7th Cir. 2009): Used for the principle that plaintiffs must support standing with the manner and degree of evidence appropriate to the stage of litigation.
  • Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992) and Simon v. E. Kentucky Welfare Rts. Org., 426 U.S. 26 (1976): Supply the core traceability formulation: the injury must be fairly traceable to the defendant and not the independent action of a third party.
  • Dep't of Educ. v. Brown, 600 U.S. 551 (2023): Cited for limits on attenuation and conjecture in causal chains.
  • Doe v. Holcomb, 883 F.3d 971 (7th Cir. 2018) and Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154 (1997): Used to show that the defendant’s action need not be the final step in the causal chain for standing to exist.
  • Forrester v. White, 484 U.S. 219 (1988): Mentioned to emphasize that suing the state judge is not a viable alternative (judicial immunity), supporting the practical necessity—consistent with Article III—of allowing suits against the executive official controlling evidence access.

4) Remand posture and avoiding merits/preclusion on appeal

  • Andrade v. City of Hammond, 9 F.4th 947 (7th Cir. 2021) and Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521 (2011) (n.11): The court relies on these to refuse Burke’s invitation to affirm on alternative grounds (preclusion/merits). The message is institutional: when a case is wrongly dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, remaining defenses should be developed and decided on remand.

B. Legal Reasoning

1) Standing: “traceability” in DNA-testing access suits

The court treats Chapman’s alleged injury as the ongoing denial of access to evidence for DNA testing. Burke’s argument—that she did not “cause” the injury because she previously agreed to testing—failed because standing turns on present deprivation and who controls access, not on earlier litigation positions.

Two aspects of the court’s causation reasoning are especially significant:

  • Control plus denial is enough: Chapman alleged Burke “has control over access to the evidence” and has denied access/testing. Under Reed and Gutierrez, that satisfies traceability for § 1983 standing.
  • Alternative future reasons don’t defeat standing: Even if a prosecutor might later cite another lawful reason to deny testing, that possibility does not “vitiate” standing to challenge the constitutionality of the reason currently preventing access. This follows Reed and Gutierrez.

2) Rooker-Feldman: independent claim vs de facto appeal

Applying Gilbank and Exxon, the court centers the analysis on whether the federal complaint (i) alleges an injury caused by the state judgment itself and (ii) asks the federal court to overturn that judgment.

Chapman’s suit survives because:

  • The target is the statute, not the judgment: The complaint’s “entire thrust” is the facial unconstitutionality of 725 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/116-3 (vagueness/administrability under due process; and Sixth Amendment jury-trial concerns about a judge “divin[ing]” the basis for the jury’s verdict years later).
  • Overlapping relief is not dispositive: The fact that Chapman seeks DNA testing—relief previously denied in state court—does not trigger Rooker-Feldman, because Skinner and Reed allow federal courts to hear § 1983 suits that challenge “a statute or rule governing the decision,” even when the plaintiff’s ultimate practical aim is access to DNA testing.
  • No “review and rejection” invitation: The court reads Chapman’s pleading as not asking the district court to declare the state judgment wrong, but to declare the statutory framework unconstitutional and enjoin its enforcement.

C. Impact

  • Clarifies jurisdiction in the Seventh Circuit for DNA-testing litigation: Federal district courts in the circuit should not dismiss § 1983 facial challenges to state DNA-testing statutes on Rooker-Feldman grounds merely because state courts previously denied testing.
  • Strengthens the practical availability of a federal forum: By confirming standing against the prosecutor alleged to control evidence access—even amid procedural complications—the decision helps ensure that constitutional challenges to post-conviction testing regimes are not functionally insulated from federal review.
  • Rechannels disputes to the right doctrines: The court signals that defenses like preclusion or merits-based arguments (e.g., whether the statute actually violates due process or the Sixth Amendment) should be addressed directly on remand, not via an overbroad jurisdictional bar.
  • Administrative consequences: Prosecutors’ offices and state actors controlling evidence may see increased pressure to maintain clear, consistent post-conviction evidence-access practices, anticipating that statutory barriers can be tested in federal court under § 1983.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Rooker-Feldman doctrine
A narrow jurisdictional rule: lower federal courts cannot act like appellate courts reviewing and reversing state-court judgments. But they can hear independent federal claims—such as a constitutional challenge to a statute used by the state court.
Standing (injury, traceability, redressability)
A plaintiff must show (1) a real, personal harm; (2) that the defendant is connected to causing it; and (3) that the court can likely fix it. Here, denial of DNA testing is the harm; the prosecutor controlling access provides the connection; and an order removing an unlawful barrier could remedy it.
Facial constitutional challenge
A claim that a law is unconstitutional in all (or at least a broad set of) applications—not merely wrongly applied in one case. Chapman alleged § 116-3 is fundamentally vague/arbitrary and structurally incompatible with due process and the jury-trial right.
Preclusion vs jurisdiction
Preclusion (res judicata/collateral estoppel) asks whether prior litigation prevents relitigation. Jurisdiction asks whether the court has power to hear the case at all. The Seventh Circuit emphasized that Rooker-Feldman is not “preclusion by another name.”
§ 116-3 “prima facie” and “chain of custody” requirements
“Prima facie” means an initial showing sufficient to proceed unless rebutted. “Chain of custody” is documentation and handling proof that evidence was not materially altered, substituted, or tampered with—important to ensure DNA testing yields reliable results.

5. Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit’s decision establishes a clear jurisdictional and justiciability rule for post-conviction DNA-testing litigation: a prisoner may bring a § 1983 facial constitutional challenge to Illinois’s DNA-testing statute without being barred by Rooker-Feldman, even after losing in state court, and may establish standing by suing the prosecutor alleged to control and deny access to the evidence. The ruling does not decide whether § 116-3 is unconstitutional; it ensures that the federal courthouse door remains open for that merits determination on remand, with other defenses (like preclusion) addressed in the ordinary course.