STORY: "Judge’s conflicting orders roil Rodney Reed appeal," by reporter Chuck Lindell, published by the American-Statesman on September 16, 2016.
HIGHLIGHTS: Judge signs two documents, with conflicting recommendations, on additional DNA tests sought by Rodney Reed; Death row inmate wants DNA tests on crime scene items; prosecutors are opposed to the testing;
GIST: A judge
has issued conflicting recommendations for resolving death row inmate
Rodney Reed’s request for additional DNA testing, throwing into disarray
an appeal that has already lasted two years and two months. The
latest legal fight began in July 2014, when Reed — on death row since
1998 — filed a request to conduct DNA testing on crime scene evidence
that Bastrop County prosecutors opposed. Visiting Judge Doug Shaver
rejected the request toward the end of 2014, and Reed appealed. Last
June, the Court of Criminal Appeals returned the case to Shaver to
determine whether evidence from the 1996 killing of Stacey Stites was
still available for testing, whether its chain of custody was preserved
and whether the items were likely to contain DNA traces. Shaver, a
retired judge who was appointed to Reed’s case after the original judge
stepped aside, ordered prosecutors and defense lawyers to draft
proposed answers to the questions — a common practice — and both sides
submitted a written list of findings and conclusions they hoped Shaver
would adopt. Problems arose when Shaver signed both sides’
proposals last week and forwarded them to the Court of Criminal Appeals,
even though they came to opposite conclusions about the chain of
custody and the likelihood that the items contain biological material to
test. “This is a new one. I’ve never quite seen
anyone rule for both sides at the same time,” said Bryce Benjet, Reed’s
lawyer. “Not only is he just affixing his name on the bottom, he didn’t
even figure out whose side he was taking.” Bastrop County District
Attorney Bryan Goertz on Thursday asked the appeals court to return the
matter to Shaver with an order to clarify his position within 14 days. As
it stands now, Goertz said, Shaver has agreed with defense lawyers who
believe the chain of custody is intact, and with prosecutors who insist
that some items Reed wants tested could have been cross-contaminated
because they were handled without gloves during Reed’s trial and weren’t
stored in separate packages after trial. “Both cannot be right,” Goertz wrote. Benjet
said he intends to object to returning the case to Shaver, arguing that
the Court of Criminal Appeals should be able to decide whether to grant
the DNA testing based on a voluminous record that has been developed in
hearings and briefs. If the appeals court wants definitive
answers from the court below, Benjet said he will ask that the case be
assigned to another judge — one who will give proper consideration to a
matter involving the death penalty.........Reed, now 48, was 10 days
from execution when the Court of Criminal Appeals issued a delay in
February 2015. Reed’s lawyers claimed that a new look at old forensic
evidence would show that he did not kill Stites, a 19-year-old Giddings
resident who was strangled 18 days before her wedding date. Her body was
found along a rural road in Bastrop County."
