Attorneys Present Closing Arguments in Rodney Reed Innocence Hearing

A Bastrop, Texas tri­al court heard clos­ing argu­ments October 18, 2021 on whether Texas death-row pris­on­er Rodney Reed should be grant­ed a new tri­al in the April 1996 mur­der of Stacey Stites. The argu­ment con­clud­ed the adver­sar­i­al por­tion of an extra­or­di­nary evi­den­tiary hear­ing ordered by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) to review Reed’s claims that pros­e­cu­tors secured his con­vic­tions for rape and mur­der by sup­press­ing excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and pre­sent­ing false testimony. 

The TCCA stayed Reed’s exe­cu­tion on November 15, 2019, just five days before he was sched­uled to be put to death in a racial­ly charged case that observers had likened to a 21^st cen­tu­ry lynch­ing. Reed, who is Black, alleged that he had been hav­ing a secret affair with Stites, who is white; that Stites was actu­al­ly mur­dered by her abu­sive fiancé, Jimmy Fennell; and that Fennell, who at that time was a police offi­cer in Giddings, Texas, had framed Reed for the mur­der. Beginning on July 19, Reed’s lawyers pre­sent­ed four days of new evi­dence to Bastrop County District Court Judge J.D. Langley sup­port­ing his inno­cence claim, fol­lowed by rebut­tal evi­dence pre­sent­ed by Texas prosecutors.

Langley indi­cat­ed that he expects to make a rec­om­men­da­tion to the TCCA, which retained juris­dic­tion over the case, by the end of October. The TCCA will deter­mine whether to grant Reed a new tri­al, set him free, or leave his con­vic­tion in place.

The Evidence at the Hearing

At the hear­ing, Reed pre­sent­ed new evi­dence that he and Stites were involved in a con­sen­su­al affair, that pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed false foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny con­cern­ing the time Stites was mur­dered and sug­gest­ing that Reed had raped her, that Fennell com­mit­ted the mur­der, and that a foren­si­cal­ly cor­rect time­line showed that Stites had died at a time Fennell him­self had said he was with her. Two of Stites’ cowork­ers at a Bastrop gro­cery store tes­ti­fied that she said she was ​“sleep­ing with a Black man named Rodney,” intro­duced him as ​“my very good friend, Rodney,” and act­ed ​“very flir­ty” and “[g]iggly and hap­py” around him. They also tes­ti­fied that they saw indi­ca­tions short­ly before her death that Fennell was abusing Stites.

Other wit­ness­es heard Fennell threat­en to kill her if she cheat­ed on him and say at her funer­al ser­vice that ​“She got what she deserved.” Fennell was lat­er con­vict­ed and spent ten years in prison for a kid­nap­ping and sex­u­al assault he com­mit­ted while on duty as a police offi­cer. Two men who were incar­cer­at­ed with him tes­ti­fied that Fennell had con­fessed to the killing. One of the men, Arthur Snow, tes­ti­fied that Fennell had said, ​“You wouldn’t believe how eas­i­ly a belt would break, stran­gling a ni***r‑loving whore.” When Stites’ body was found, the belt that was used to stran­gle her was in two pieces. Reed’s lawyers also pre­sent­ed evi­dence that Fennell had failed two poly­graph tests about the mur­der, had no ali­bi for when the mur­der actu­al­ly occurred, and cleaned out his bank account the morn­ing Stites died.

Reed’s lawyers attacked the pros­e­cu­tion’s case with foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny from two doc­tors who tes­ti­fied that the state’s foren­sic wit­ness, foren­sic expert Dr. Suzanna Dana, had pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny about how long the rig­or mor­tis process takes. Despite notes in her own text­book that con­tra­dict­ed her tes­ti­mo­ny, Dana under­stat­ed the time frame, allow­ing pros­e­cu­tors to set the time of death between 3 – 5 a.m. The state of Stites’ body at the time it was dis­cov­ered, includ­ing the start of the decom­po­si­tion process, the defense experts tes­ti­fied, indi­cat­ed that Stites had actu­al­ly died ear­li­er, at a time Fennell said Stites had been with him. 

Forensic pathol­o­gist Dr. Gregory Davis also rebutted tes­ti­mo­ny from Texas Department of Public Safety foren­sic exam­in­er Karen Blakely, who false­ly informed the jury that intact sperm can live no longer than 26 hours. Prosecutors had used Blakely’s tes­ti­mo­ny to per­suade the jury that the pres­ence of Reed’s sperm in Stites’ body showed that he had raped Stites before killing her. Reed con­tend­ed that he had had con­sen­su­al sex with Stites days before her death. Sperm can remain intact for up to a week, Davis testified.

In clos­ing argu­ments, Jane Pucher, an attor­ney with the Innocence Project who is rep­re­sent­ing Reed, said, the new evi­dence sup­ports Reed’s request for a new tri­al. ​“A new jury, hear­ing this evi­dence, would have a rea­son­able doubt in this case,” she said.

Prosecutors attempt­ed to rebut Reed’s case by argu­ing that the wit­ness­es’ mem­o­ries were faulty as a result of the pas­sage of time. They also pre­sent­ed Fennell’s fam­i­ly mem­bers to say that they could not believe he would ever harm Stites. Finally, they pre­sent­ed the tes­ti­mo­ny of a woman who said that Reed had sex­u­al­ly assault­ed her ear­li­er in 1996.

Family mem­bers of Stites and Reed attend­ed the hear­ing. Stites’ sis­ter, Debra Oliver, said after­ward that she still believes Reed killed her sis­ter. ​“I think the state did a great job of prov­ing that there’s nev­er been any evi­dence of a rela­tion­ship between Rodney and Stacey,” she told the Austin American-Statesman. Reed’s broth­er, Rodrick Reed, how­ev­er, said he felt ​“pret­ty good” about the hear­ing. ​“All we ask for is a fair tri­al,” he said. ​“My broth­er nev­er had that from the begin­ning. It was a Jim Crow tri­al straight out the gate. And so, if this time we can get a fair tri­al, the evi­dence will free Rodney Reed.”