SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Rodney Reed with his brother Rodrick, nephew Rodrick Jr., and mother Sandra Reed at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit, West Livingston, Texas in 2019. (Photo: Courtesy of the Reed Justice Initiative)
Rodney Reed Lawyers 'Relieved and Thankful' After Stay of Execution Granted by Texas Court
"Reed's execution should not just be delayed, but canceled," said Bernie Sanders. "Real criminal justice reform must include joining every other major democracy in eliminating the death penalty."
Nov 15, 2019
Death penalty opponents and human rights defenders applauded on Friday night after the highest court in Texas issued an indefinite stay of execution for Rodney Reed.
According to the Austin Statesman:
The order by the Court of Criminal Appeals came hours after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously to recommend that Gov. Greg Abbott delay, for 120 days, Wednesday's scheduled execution.
The board declined to support Reed's request to commute his death sentence to a life term in prison.
Abbott could have accepted or rejected the seven-member board's recommendation, but Friday's stay of execution took the matter out of his hands.
Citing Reed's innocence in the 1996 murder for which he was convicted, human rights groups have been demanding Reed be taken off death row for years. That call has become increasingly urgent as his scheduled execution date approach.
"We are extremely relieved and thankful that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) has issued a stay of execution for our client Rodney Reed," said the Innonence Project, which has been working on Reed's appeal, in a statement. "The CCA has ordered the claims of Brady violations, false testimony and actual innocence in Mr. Reed's case back to the trial court. This opportunity will allow for proper consideration of the powerful and mounting new evidence of Mr. Reed's innocence."
As the Statesman reports:
Reed's lawyers say analyses from forensic experts determined that Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old whose body was discovered along a rural road in Bastrop County in 1996, had been killed hours before she could have encountered Reed -- but at a time when she was with fiance Jimmy Fennell in the apartment they shared in Giddings. Other witnesses have submitted sworn statements supporting Reed's claim that he and Stites were having an affair, explaining the presence of his semen in her body, and portraying Fennell as a racist who expressed anger that Stites was sleeping with a black man and, according to one affidavit, admitted to killing her. Reed is African American. Fennell, like Stites, is white.
Friday's order from the Court of Criminal Appeals will allow Reed to present that evidence and advance arguments that Reed was convicted based on false testimony from prosecution medical experts who told jurors that the condition of Reed's sperm, with tails intact, meant she was raped and strangled minutes apart, and that only Reed could have committed the murder.
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was among those who applauded the decision, but added that the courts should go even further and capital punishment be abolished entirely.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) expressed a similar sentiment:
"An indefinite stay of execution for Rodney Reed is just and warranted," declared the ACLU in a tweet following the news. "When the state kills someone who may be innocent in the name of justice, the true perversion of the death penalty becomes clear."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Death penalty opponents and human rights defenders applauded on Friday night after the highest court in Texas issued an indefinite stay of execution for Rodney Reed.
According to the Austin Statesman:
The order by the Court of Criminal Appeals came hours after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously to recommend that Gov. Greg Abbott delay, for 120 days, Wednesday's scheduled execution.
The board declined to support Reed's request to commute his death sentence to a life term in prison.
Abbott could have accepted or rejected the seven-member board's recommendation, but Friday's stay of execution took the matter out of his hands.
Citing Reed's innocence in the 1996 murder for which he was convicted, human rights groups have been demanding Reed be taken off death row for years. That call has become increasingly urgent as his scheduled execution date approach.
"We are extremely relieved and thankful that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) has issued a stay of execution for our client Rodney Reed," said the Innonence Project, which has been working on Reed's appeal, in a statement. "The CCA has ordered the claims of Brady violations, false testimony and actual innocence in Mr. Reed's case back to the trial court. This opportunity will allow for proper consideration of the powerful and mounting new evidence of Mr. Reed's innocence."
As the Statesman reports:
Reed's lawyers say analyses from forensic experts determined that Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old whose body was discovered along a rural road in Bastrop County in 1996, had been killed hours before she could have encountered Reed -- but at a time when she was with fiance Jimmy Fennell in the apartment they shared in Giddings. Other witnesses have submitted sworn statements supporting Reed's claim that he and Stites were having an affair, explaining the presence of his semen in her body, and portraying Fennell as a racist who expressed anger that Stites was sleeping with a black man and, according to one affidavit, admitted to killing her. Reed is African American. Fennell, like Stites, is white.
Friday's order from the Court of Criminal Appeals will allow Reed to present that evidence and advance arguments that Reed was convicted based on false testimony from prosecution medical experts who told jurors that the condition of Reed's sperm, with tails intact, meant she was raped and strangled minutes apart, and that only Reed could have committed the murder.
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was among those who applauded the decision, but added that the courts should go even further and capital punishment be abolished entirely.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) expressed a similar sentiment:
"An indefinite stay of execution for Rodney Reed is just and warranted," declared the ACLU in a tweet following the news. "When the state kills someone who may be innocent in the name of justice, the true perversion of the death penalty becomes clear."
Death penalty opponents and human rights defenders applauded on Friday night after the highest court in Texas issued an indefinite stay of execution for Rodney Reed.
According to the Austin Statesman:
The order by the Court of Criminal Appeals came hours after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously to recommend that Gov. Greg Abbott delay, for 120 days, Wednesday's scheduled execution.
The board declined to support Reed's request to commute his death sentence to a life term in prison.
Abbott could have accepted or rejected the seven-member board's recommendation, but Friday's stay of execution took the matter out of his hands.
Citing Reed's innocence in the 1996 murder for which he was convicted, human rights groups have been demanding Reed be taken off death row for years. That call has become increasingly urgent as his scheduled execution date approach.
"We are extremely relieved and thankful that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) has issued a stay of execution for our client Rodney Reed," said the Innonence Project, which has been working on Reed's appeal, in a statement. "The CCA has ordered the claims of Brady violations, false testimony and actual innocence in Mr. Reed's case back to the trial court. This opportunity will allow for proper consideration of the powerful and mounting new evidence of Mr. Reed's innocence."
As the Statesman reports:
Reed's lawyers say analyses from forensic experts determined that Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old whose body was discovered along a rural road in Bastrop County in 1996, had been killed hours before she could have encountered Reed -- but at a time when she was with fiance Jimmy Fennell in the apartment they shared in Giddings. Other witnesses have submitted sworn statements supporting Reed's claim that he and Stites were having an affair, explaining the presence of his semen in her body, and portraying Fennell as a racist who expressed anger that Stites was sleeping with a black man and, according to one affidavit, admitted to killing her. Reed is African American. Fennell, like Stites, is white.
Friday's order from the Court of Criminal Appeals will allow Reed to present that evidence and advance arguments that Reed was convicted based on false testimony from prosecution medical experts who told jurors that the condition of Reed's sperm, with tails intact, meant she was raped and strangled minutes apart, and that only Reed could have committed the murder.
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was among those who applauded the decision, but added that the courts should go even further and capital punishment be abolished entirely.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) expressed a similar sentiment:
"An indefinite stay of execution for Rodney Reed is just and warranted," declared the ACLU in a tweet following the news. "When the state kills someone who may be innocent in the name of justice, the true perversion of the death penalty becomes clear."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.