Sunday, June 11, 2017

Rodney Reed: Death Row; Texas. Bulletin...Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rules prosecutors presented “false and misleading” testimony in his 1998 capital murder conviction. His mother is 'guardedly' optimistic about Reed's chances for freedom..."Reed was convicted of the 1996 murder of Stacy Stites, a 19-year-old Giddings resident with whom he claimed he was having a secret affair. Prosecutors argued Reed abducted, raped and strangled Stiles on her way to work. But defense attorneys have argued that Stites was was killed by her fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, a former Georgetown police officer who is now serving a 10-year sentence for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a woman in his custody in 2007. Reed’s attorney Bryce Benjet has said that the state’s key expert witness at the trial, then-Travis County Medical Examiner Roberto Bayardo, has since disavowed his testimony implicating Reed, saying that the sperm found in Stites’ body was likely deposited more than 24 hours before her death. Benjet said a new analysis of medical and forensic evidence by a pair of forensic pathologists shows that Stites was likely killed hours before she was supposed to have left for work and that her body was moved to a rural Bastrop County road after her death. The court of appeals last month rejected the defense claim that the new evidence established Reed’s innocence, but sent the case back to a Bastrop County court to consider the claims of false testimony during the original trial."



"The mother of death row inmate Rodney Reed said Saturday she is guardedly optimistic about her son’s chances for freedom after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled prosecutors presented “false and misleading” testimony in his 1998 capital murder conviction. “I’m hoping for justice,” Sandra Reed told the American-Statesman. “But we have presented so many other pieces of evidence before this that should have at least opened up a new trial. How can you bring a case to justice without the truth?”.........Reed was convicted of the 1996 murder of Stacy Stites, a 19-year-old Giddings resident with whom he claimed he was having a secret affair. Prosecutors argued Reed abducted, raped and strangled Stiles on her way to work. But defense attorneys have argued that Stites was was killed by her fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, a former Georgetown police officer who is now serving a 10-year sentence for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a woman in his custody in 2007. Reed’s attorney Bryce Benjet has said that the state’s key expert witness at the trial, then-Travis County Medical Examiner Roberto Bayardo, has since disavowed his testimony implicating Reed, saying that the sperm found in Stites’ body was likely deposited more than 24 hours before her death.
Benjet said a new analysis of medical and forensic evidence by a pair of forensic pathologists shows that Stites was likely killed hours before she was supposed to have left for work and that her body was moved to a rural Bastrop County road after her death. The court of appeals last month rejected the defense claim that the new evidence established Reed’s innocence, but sent the case back to a Bastrop County court to consider the claims of false testimony during the original trial.........Reed was 10 days from his execution date in February 2015, when the court ordered a closer look at his request for modern DNA testing of items linked to the murder. But in April the appeals court denied Reed’s request for additional DNA testing, citing the possibility of “cross-contamination” of evidence that had mingled in boxes after repeated handling by court employees."
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/rodney-reed-mother-hopes-finding-false-testimony-leads-justice/kif64vjx1gqmeB6ZoBdAhK/