NEW VOICES: Retired Judges Support Death Row Inmate’s Appeal

In a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, eight retired judges recent­ly asked the Court to review the case of Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed. Reed is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in January 2015. While the judges, who served on fed­er­al and state courts in many juris­dic­tions around the coun­try, did not take a stance on Reed’s inno­cence claims, they urged the Court to hear his appeal so that new evi­dence in the case could be exam­ined under the light of cross-exam­i­na­tion in a full hear­ing, rather than just through the review of legal papers. ​“That is not how our sys­tem of jus­tice is designed to oper­ate,” the judges said. ​“When courts have only affi­davits with­out wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny, they lack the means of test­ing the accu­ra­cy, reli­a­bil­i­ty, com­pe­tence, sci­en­tif­ic acu­men, prop­er train­ing and judg­ment of the [per­son tes­ti­fy­ing].” Reed is claim­ing that his tri­al lawyers did not ade­quate­ly inves­ti­gate foren­sic evi­dence that experts now say might be unre­li­able. A three-judge pan­el of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reject­ed Reed’s appeal because they found the new tes­ti­mo­ny unper­sua­sive as pre­sent­ed in appel­late briefs. The eight judges who peti­tioned the Supreme Court said the evi­dence should have been heard by a dis­trict judge in an evi­den­tiary hear­ing, rather than by the appeals court. ​“Trial courts are the appro­pri­ate venue for devel­op­ing a fac­tu­al record and resolv­ing ques­tions of fact,” they said. See list of judges below.

(C. Lindell, ​“Eight ex-judges sup­port appeal of death row inmate Rodney Reed,” Austin American-Statesman, July 22, 2014). See New Voices and Supreme Court.