Rodney Reed

Rodney Reed (born December 22, 1967) is a Texas Death Row inmate who claims he was wrongfully convicted. Rodney Reed, a black man from Bastrop County, Texas, is currently on death row for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites, 19, a white woman who was engaged to Officer Jimmy Fennell at the time of her murder. His execution date had been set for January 14, 2015. At the request of the state, the scheduled execution date had been moved to March 5, 2015. On February 23, the execution was stayed indefinitely by Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.^[1]

Conviction

The state’s case against Reed, who has maintained his innocence since his arrest for the crime, relied on a single piece of physical evidence: semen matched to Reed, found in Stites’ body.

During his trial, Reed explained that he had sex with Stites, intermittently, for 4 to 5 months before her death. Reed testified he had sex with Stites during the early hours of April 22, a full day before her murder. However, Travis County Medical Examiner Dr. Roberto Bayardo testified that the recovered semen had been deposited recently, thus contradicting Reed's testimony. In August 2012, Bayardo admitted his trial testimony was inaccurate, that he, in fact, didn't know the age of the semen or when it was deposited in Stacey.

Reed's defenders pose an alternative theory. They claim Fennell found out about Stacey and Rodney, and then he murdered Stites. Only the fingerprints of Stacey Stites and Jimmy Fennell were on Stacey and the truck (where Stacey's corpse had been stuffed on the floorboard for many hours). Investigators returned the truck to Fennell six days after the murder, before a full forensic analysis was completed.^[2] Soon afterwards Fennell sold the truck to a dealership. There were also no witnesses who could place Reed anywhere near the time and place of the crime scene. Jimmy and Stacey's shared apartment, the last place Stacey was ever seen alive, was never searched.

Mary Blackwell, a police officer in the Dallas area, was a member of the same police academy class as Fennell. She told the court that Fennell remarked to several class members he would kill his girlfriend by strangling her if she cheated on him. When asked how he would make sure his fingerprints could not be lifted from her neck, Blackwell testified that Fennell said he would use a belt.^[3] Stites was found strangled with a belt.

In 2008, Officer Jimmy Fennell pleaded guilty to kidnapping and sexual misconduct in an unrelated incident that took place in 2007. The victim in that case has spoken out against Officer Jimmy Fennell and questioned Reed's guilt.^[4]

Reed is the subject of the documentary film State vs. Reed, produced by Frank Bustoz and Ryan Polomski. This film is a good starting point to understand this troubling, complex case. The film caused some controversy; however, it has not had an effect on his appeals.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected those arguments and ruled on January 10, 2014 that Reed’s claim of innocence lacked credibility.^[5] Reed was scheduled for a sentencing hearing on July 14, 2014 appearing in Bastrop, Texas before Visiting Judge Douglas Shaver.^[6] Reed's conviction and death sentence remain highly controversial.

On February 23, 2015, a Texas Appeals Court announced that they had postponed Rodney Reed's execution, originally scheduled for January 14, 2015, for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites, after his attorneys filed a petition citing the existence of new “scientific evidence” that establishes his “probable innocence."^[7] It includes findings from three forensic scientists claiming their evidence shows Reed could not have been the person who killed Stites. Reed’s defense attorney says their new evidence shows she was killed hours earlier, the night before (on April 22, 1996) instead of at 3:00 a.m. on April 23, 1996.^[8]

Rodney Reed

Conviction

See also

References

External links