Rodney Reed denied justice in death penalty case
Rodney Reed in Bastrop County court for a 2015 hearing.
Houston — For well over a decade, Texas death row prisoner Rodney Reed has tried to get a court to grant him the right to have DNA testing done on the murder weapon in his capital murder case.
On March 23, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) denied Reed’s petition for a grant of certiorari. Texas courts and lower federal courts have so far backed prosecutors’ refusal to allow for the testing, which Reed’s defense team would pay for.
Reed, 56, has been on death row for almost 30 years following a conviction by an all-white jury for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites. An African American man, he was unjustly convicted of murdering a white woman who he was in a consensual relationship with in Bastrop, Texas — a small town near Austin known for its racist history.
Reed’s family and the thousands of activists who support him, continuously ask: “What is the District Attorney, the courts and the local police hiding? Why not test the murder weapon for DNA?”
The only logical answers
His real crime was having an affair with a white woman, and a DNA test would likely show that the real killer of Stites was her fianceé, Jimmy Fennell, a white ex-police officer, and not Rodney Reed.
Fennell was a local police officer in 1996. He and Stites were planning to marry. But she was involved with Reed at the same time. Reed’s mother, Sandra Reed, told this reporter that she knew Stites, because she had been at her house with Reed several times.
In 2008, Fennell pled guilty and served a decade in prison for kidnapping and raping a woman he had arrested at a traffic stop.
The Innocence Project in New York has been representing Reed. They say a confession by Fennell has been discovered. On Oct. 29, 2019, Arthur Snow, a former member of the Aryan Brotherhood and Fennell’s prison mate, disclosed that Fennell had confessed to murdering Stacey, stating, “I had to kill my n******-loving fiancée,” in a jail conversation. (innocenceproject.org)
The murder weapon that prosecutors have refused to allow to be DNA tested is a webbed belt that was used to strangle Stites as she made her way to work at a supermarket in Bastrop.
According to the March 23 The Texas Tribune: “The killer held that belt tight against her throat for minutes and must have left his sweat and skin cells — and thus his DNA — where he gripped the belt, both on the surface and deep within the webbing.” Texas claims that the chain of custody has been broken, and many people have touched the belt. However, the state routinely uses contaminated evidence in prosecutions. Plus modern DNA testing is now capable of generating accurate results even when the evidence has been contaminated.
The March 23 New York Times quoted Reed’s attorneys: “Given everything we now know, it is inexplicable why Texas would not want to test the murder weapon and confirm the truth.” Reed’s legal team said it will “continue to pursue avenues to obtain relief.”
Texas legislators have tried to strengthen the legal path for prisoners to pursue innocence claims using forensic and technological advancements. However, state prosecutors have succeeded in blocking that path in virtually every capital case, according to The Death Penalty Information Center.
Denial of DNA testing ‘inexplicable’
After SCOTUS denied certiorari, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan issued this dissent: “It is inexplicable why the Bastrop County District Attorney’s Office refuses to allow DNA testing of the belt that was used to kill Stites, despite the very substantial possibility that such testing could exculpate Reed and identify the real killer.”
The justices concluded with, “The State will likely execute Reed without the world ever knowing whether Reed’s or Fennell’s DNA is on the murder weapon, even though a simple DNA test could reveal that information.” (Death Penalty Information Center)
Reed’s case has generated support from many public personalities, such as Beyoncé, Kim Kardashian, Dr. Phil McGraw, Rihanna and Oprah Winfrey.
Texas has carried out two executions this year, and four more are scheduled. Reed does not currently have an execution date, but this latest ruling means Texas could set a date any day.
