John —
Rodney Reed has been on death row in Texas for 23 years for a crime he’s always said he didn’t commit — the murder of Stacey Stites, a woman whom he was secretly seeing at the time of her death.
In 1998, Rodney, a Black man, was convicted of murdering Stacey, a white woman, by an all-white jury. Though the prime suspect in the case initially was her fiancé, local police officer Jimmy Fennell, police shifted all of their attention to Rodney after DNA recovered from Stacey matched him.
This week, Rodney Reed has been back in court in Texas trying to prove his innocence.
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(Sandra Reed, the mother of Rodney Reed, outside a hearing in Bastrop County District Court on Tuesday, October 10. 2017. (Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
At the time of his original trial, Rodney said that he and Stacey were having a consensual relationship, which explains the presence of his DNA. But they had to hide their relationship because Stacey was engaged and Rodney is Black, while Stacey was white. The prosecution claimed there was no evidence of their connection to one another.
This week, Innocence Project lawyers gave opening statements and presented witnesses, who testified to seeing Rodney and Stacey together and that they did have a relationship. Multiple witnesses also testified that Jimmy Fennell knew about their affair, and that he had used racial slurs when referring to Rodney. One witness said Jimmy told him that he would kill Stacey if he ever found out she was cheating on him with a Black man.
Dr. Andrew Baker, a medical examiner, also took the stand and gave crucial testimony saying that the State presented false evidence about Stacey’s death at the original trial, testimony that served to exclude Jimmy as the person who killed her.
All of this further supports Rodney’s innocence. His hearing will continue next week, and we’re not going to stop fighting until he gets the justice he deserves.
If you haven’t already, take a moment right now to add your name to get breaking news updates about Rodney’s case [[link removed]] or text FREERODNEY to 52886.
Thanks and more soon,
— The Innocence Project Team
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Started in 1992 as a legal clinic at Cardozo School of Law, the Innocence Project is now an independent nonprofit, affiliated with Cardozo, that exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
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