Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case of Texas Death Row Prisoner Rodney Reed

In a case legal experts say could redress a mis­car­riage of jus­tice or insti­tu­tion­al­ize it, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the Texas fed­er­al courts’ refusal to per­mit DNA test­ing of crime-scene evi­dence that could poten­tial­ly exon­er­ate death-row pris­on­er Rodney Reed.

On April 25, 2022, the Court grant­ed Reed’s peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari, which rais­es the ques­tion of when the time clock begins to run on a state prisoner’s fed­er­al civ­il rights law­suit seek­ing access to DNA test­ing. Though the issue involves tech­ni­cal pro­ce­dur­al issues, the way it is resolved will deter­mine whether Reed and oth­ers seek­ing to prove their inno­cence have mean­ing­ful access to the fed­er­al courts to obtain DNA testing.

Reed has main­tained his inno­cence of the 1996 mur­der of 19-year-old Stacey Stites, with whom he says he had been hav­ing an affair that they kept secret because of local big­otry towards inter­ra­cial rela­tion­ships. Reed is Black and Stites was White. Reed’s lawyers argue that DNA test­ing of crime scene evi­dence, includ­ing the belt used as a lig­a­ture to stran­gle Stites, would impli­cate her finance, Jimmy Fennell, in the mur­der. Reed pre­sent­ed evi­dence from numer­ous wit­ness­es in a state post-con­vic­tion hear­ing in 2021 point­ing to Fennell as Stites’ killer. That evi­dence includ­ed tes­ti­mo­ny that Fennell, a police offi­cer who was lat­er jailed on charges of sex­u­al­ly assault­ing a woman in his cus­tody, had threat­ened to stran­gle Stites with a belt if he ever caught her cheat­ing on him. 

In 2014, Reed sought DNA test­ing in the Texas courts. Prosecutors fought the request, argu­ing that the evi­dence could have been con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed as a result of state mis­han­dling. The tri­al court issued a one-sen­tence order in November 2014 deny­ing Reed’s request. Reed appealed, and in June 2016 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals returned the case to the tri­al court for addi­tion­al find­ings. The appeals court ulti­mate­ly upheld the tri­al court’s rul­ing in April 2017. Then, in October 2017, it denied Reed’s motion to recon­sid­er its ruling.

Federal law grant­ed Reed two years from the denial of his request to ini­ti­ate a fed­er­al civ­il rights law­suit alleg­ing that the Texas courts’ action had vio­lat­ed his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. It is undis­put­ed that he did so with­in two years of the appeals court’s deci­sion. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the time clock on Reed’s fed­er­al law­suit had begun to run the moment the tri­al court denied his request, even though his appeal of the rul­ing was still pend­ing in the state courts. Under the court’s rea­son­ing, the clock had expired before the state appeals court issued his deci­sion, and Reed’s fed­er­al chal­lenge to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of that rul­ing was barred as untimely.

In a peti­tion filed in September 2021 by the Innocence Project and a team of pro bono lawyers from the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Reed asked the Supreme Court to review the Fifth Circuit’s rul­ing. Reed argued that, as the neigh­bor­ing U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has held, the statute of lim­i­ta­tions on his claim begins to run only after all state court appeals on the issue have been exhaust­ed. After being dis­trib­uted for con­fer­ence eight times, the Court on April 25, 2022 agreed to hear Reed’s case.

In a state­ment to media issued after the rul­ing, Reed’s lawyers said: ​“New evi­dence of inno­cence points to Stites’ white fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, as the per­pe­tra­tor. But Texas and the Texas courts have refused to allow DNA test­ing of key crime-scene evi­dence, includ­ing the lig­a­ture han­dled by the per­pe­tra­tor in the com­mis­sion of the crime.

“When Mr. Reed sought access to DNA test­ing in fed­er­al court, the fed­er­al courts wrong­ly threw out his claims as untime­ly, rea­son­ing that he could have start­ed his fed­er­al action while the state-court pro­ceed­ings were still pend­ing,” the lawyers wrote. ​“We look for­ward to hav­ing the Supreme Court con­sid­er our arguments.”

“Mr. Reed has a strong claim of inno­cence and Texas sought to close the doors to fed­er­al court review,” American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project direc­tor Cassandra Stubbs said. ​“The stakes of this ques­tion are impor­tant for any­one with sub­stan­tial claims of inno­cence seek­ing DNA test­ing,” she said, ​“but they are espe­cial­ly impor­tant to those like Mr. Reed on death row.”

Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham told The Hill that Reed’s case ​“will be a ​“bell­wether as to whether the court is seri­ous about pro­vid­ing inno­cent peo­ple access to mean­ing­ful fed­er­al review, or whether it is try­ing to shut down mean­ing­ful access to the federal courts.”