STORY: "Rodney Reed case sent back to Bastrop to weigh false testimony claim," by reporter Andy Sevilla, published by reporter Andy Sevilla on May 17, 2017. (Andy Sevilla is the editor of the Bastrop Advertiser and Smithville Times)
SUB-HEADING: "State’s highest criminal court rejects claim that recently discovered evidence supported Reed’s innocence. But appeals court agrees prosecutors failed to disclose the evidence potentially supporting his innocence.
GIST: "The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday remanded death row inmate Rodney Reed’s case back to a Bastrop County court to weigh claims about prosecutors’ presentation of false testimony in his 1998 capital murder conviction. Reed was convicted of the 1996 murder of Stacy Stites, a 19-year-old Giddings resident whose body was found along a rural road in Bastrop County. Prosecutors argued Reed abducted, raped and strangled Stites while she was on her way to work. At one point in 2015, Reed was within 10 days of execution. Reed’s defense team, however, has maintained the Bastrop man is innocent and that recently discovered evidence will prove he didn’t kill Stites. In the ruling issued Wednesday by the state’s highest criminal court, the court rejected a 2015 claim by Reed’s lawyers that newly discovered evidence supported his innocence. But the court agreed with Reed’s other claim that prosecutors failed to disclose the newly discovered evidence and that the evidence “shows that the State presented false and misleading testimony, which violated his right to due process.” Reed’s attorney Bryce Benjet said in a statement Wednesday that the state convicted Reed based on medical expert testimony that his semen was found in Stites’ body, which the state claimed could have only come from a sexual assault at or near the time of her death. Reed has claimed he and Stites were carrying on a secret affair, and Benjet said Stites’ cousin and co-workers have confirmed that relationship. Benjet said the state’s key expert witness at the trial, then-Travis County Medical Examiner Dr. Roberto Bayardo, has since disavowed his testimony implicating Reed in the murder by saying that, in his professional opinion, the sperm he found in Stites’ body could have been deposited days before her death, and that based on the very few spermatozoa in Stites’ body, it likely was deposited more than 24 hours before her death. Bayardo has said that if prosecutors had advised him they intended to present testimony that spermatozoa cannot remain intact in the vaginal cavity for more than 26 hours and argued Stites died within 24 hours of the sperm being deposited, he would have advised them that neither the testimony nor the argument was medically or scientifically supported. Benjet said a new analysis of the medical and forensic evidence by forensic pathologists Dr. Michael Baden and Dr. Werner Spitz establishes that Stites was likely killed hours before she was supposed to have left for work and that her body was moved to the location it was found after her death. Stites’ fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, testified during the trial he was at home with Stites the entire evening before she left to work. Benjet said that testimony has been contradicted by close friend Curtis Davis, a Bastrop County sheriff’s investigator, during an on-camera interview with CNN in 2016, which hasn’t yet aired. Fennell confided to Davis he had been out drinking the night before Stites was killed and went home late. Benjet said that information that was never disclosed to the defense. He said new forensic evidence shows Stites was killed sometime before midnight April 22, 1996, and that her body was moved to the remote location where it was found, whereas prosecutors claimed Stites was strangled during the early morning hours of April 23 on her way to work.........Defense lawyers have argued that Stites was most likely killed by Fennell after he learned of her affair with Reed. Fennell is in prison serving a 10-year sentence for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a woman in his custody when he was a Georgetown police officer in 2007.' The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said it found that although Reed “has failed to make a prima facie showing of actual innocence,” his lawyers’ claims about the failures to disclose evidence and the false testimony deserved to be heard in trial court, and it ordered the claims to be resolved within two months."
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.mystatesman.com/news/crime--law/rodney-reed-case-sent-back-bastrop-weigh-false-testimony-claim/XVKFPCF5fw77jKT3W3OknM/
GIST: "The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday remanded death row inmate Rodney Reed’s case back to a Bastrop County court to weigh claims about prosecutors’ presentation of false testimony in his 1998 capital murder conviction. Reed was convicted of the 1996 murder of Stacy Stites, a 19-year-old Giddings resident whose body was found along a rural road in Bastrop County. Prosecutors argued Reed abducted, raped and strangled Stites while she was on her way to work. At one point in 2015, Reed was within 10 days of execution. Reed’s defense team, however, has maintained the Bastrop man is innocent and that recently discovered evidence will prove he didn’t kill Stites. In the ruling issued Wednesday by the state’s highest criminal court, the court rejected a 2015 claim by Reed’s lawyers that newly discovered evidence supported his innocence. But the court agreed with Reed’s other claim that prosecutors failed to disclose the newly discovered evidence and that the evidence “shows that the State presented false and misleading testimony, which violated his right to due process.” Reed’s attorney Bryce Benjet said in a statement Wednesday that the state convicted Reed based on medical expert testimony that his semen was found in Stites’ body, which the state claimed could have only come from a sexual assault at or near the time of her death. Reed has claimed he and Stites were carrying on a secret affair, and Benjet said Stites’ cousin and co-workers have confirmed that relationship. Benjet said the state’s key expert witness at the trial, then-Travis County Medical Examiner Dr. Roberto Bayardo, has since disavowed his testimony implicating Reed in the murder by saying that, in his professional opinion, the sperm he found in Stites’ body could have been deposited days before her death, and that based on the very few spermatozoa in Stites’ body, it likely was deposited more than 24 hours before her death. Bayardo has said that if prosecutors had advised him they intended to present testimony that spermatozoa cannot remain intact in the vaginal cavity for more than 26 hours and argued Stites died within 24 hours of the sperm being deposited, he would have advised them that neither the testimony nor the argument was medically or scientifically supported. Benjet said a new analysis of the medical and forensic evidence by forensic pathologists Dr. Michael Baden and Dr. Werner Spitz establishes that Stites was likely killed hours before she was supposed to have left for work and that her body was moved to the location it was found after her death. Stites’ fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, testified during the trial he was at home with Stites the entire evening before she left to work. Benjet said that testimony has been contradicted by close friend Curtis Davis, a Bastrop County sheriff’s investigator, during an on-camera interview with CNN in 2016, which hasn’t yet aired. Fennell confided to Davis he had been out drinking the night before Stites was killed and went home late. Benjet said that information that was never disclosed to the defense. He said new forensic evidence shows Stites was killed sometime before midnight April 22, 1996, and that her body was moved to the remote location where it was found, whereas prosecutors claimed Stites was strangled during the early morning hours of April 23 on her way to work.........Defense lawyers have argued that Stites was most likely killed by Fennell after he learned of her affair with Reed. Fennell is in prison serving a 10-year sentence for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a woman in his custody when he was a Georgetown police officer in 2007.' The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said it found that although Reed “has failed to make a prima facie showing of actual innocence,” his lawyers’ claims about the failures to disclose evidence and the false testimony deserved to be heard in trial court, and it ordered the claims to be resolved within two months."
http://www.mystatesman.com/news/crime--law/rodney-reed-case-sent-back-bastrop-weigh-false-testimony-claim/XVKFPCF5fw77jKT3W3OknM/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the
Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my
previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put
considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith
and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic
pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses
on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
