John —

Rodney Reed, a Black man from Texas, has spent the last 23 years on death row for the murder of a white woman named Stacey Stites — a crime he’s always maintained he did not commit.

Rodney was scheduled for execution in November 2019, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) issued a stay to allow the courts to consider new evidence of his innocence and returned the case to a lower court for an evidentiary hearing.

The evidence of innocence presented at that hearing was overwhelming. Despite this, Judge J.D. Langley adopted, nearly verbatim, the State’s proposed order, including several obvious factual misrepresentations. He essentially copy-and-pasted what the State put forward and failed in his duty to carefully and independently assess the credibility of 47 witnesses.

Yesterday, Rodney’s legal team filed a brief opposing Judge Langley's findings at the CCA because the judge abandoned his duty to be a neutral, independent fact-finder. The CCA should reject the trial court’s copy-and-pasted order.

Take a moment to learn more about Rodney’s case for innocence, and then share the news with your friends and family on social media.

This is just the next step in the fight to prove Rodney’s innocence, and we won’t stop until he’s free. We’re so glad to have you by our side.

With gratitude,

— The Innocence Project Team

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The Innocence Project works to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone. Founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, the organization is now an independent nonprofit. Our work is guided by science and grounded in antiracism.

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