"Granting Mr. Reed a reprieve ... will allow the cloud of doubt surrounding his guilt to be lifted."
Bipartisan letter
Rodney has been on death row since 1998 for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites in Bastrop, Texas. There is substantial evidence that exonerates Rodney and implicates Stites’ then-fiancé Jimmy Fennell, a former local police officer.
In this letter, legislators requested a reprieve stating, “Granting Mr. Reed a reprieve until the new developments in his case are fully resolved will allow the cloud of doubt surrounding his guilt to be lifted. Only then should our justice system proceed, one way or the other, with decisions that cannot be undone.”
The legislators who signed the letter are part of the newly-formed bipartisan Texas House of Representatives Criminal Justice Reform Caucus, with the addition of two other Republican legislators. This is the first action the caucus has taken since its inception.
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. www.innocenceproject.org
