5:33 p.m. – Dr. Dana says it appears Stites was wearing some portion of a H-E-B uniform. In Carol Stites’ previous testimony, she last saw Stacey Stites wearing what she wore to bed: a T-shirt. Dana says Stites’ truck found at 5:23 a.m., so therefore Stites was dead by 5:20 a.m.
Court has adjourned for the day.
5:04 p.m. – Prosecutor is questioning Dr. Suzanna Dana. Dana looked at Reed’s case to come to a conclusion and looked at Stite’s autopsy. Dana says etermining time of death is not an exact science. She says she looked at cooling of body and rigor mortis. Dana says Stites' body lacked signs of decomposition.
Dr. Dana says that looking at crime scene video, Stites had been strangled. Dana says there had been a struggle and there is no color change on her abdomen. Dana disagrees with defense’s time of death of before 3 a.m. She said time of death is from 3 a.m. to 4 a.m., which is consistent with the State’s original estimate of 3 a.m. to 5 a.m.
4:27 p.m. – The State's next witness is Dr. Suzanna Dana, a forensic pathologist. She has performed more than 11,000 autopsies and issued a report about Reed's case a couple of months ago.
3:40 p.m. – Defense attorney Corrine Irish is still cross-examining memory expert Dr. Deborah Davis. Davis says just a single exposure to misinformation to media can distort memory. Irish and Davis are now talking about studies about memory. This back and forth drags on until the judge finally interrupts. Judge J.D. Langley instructs Davis to just answer questions and not embellish answers “to prevent chaos." This way, there “will be an end.”
2:49 p.m. – Defense attorney Corrine Irish is now cross-examining Dr. Deborah Davis. Davis said eyewitness reliability varies greatly but is mostly unreliable. While memory tests exist, Dr. Davis said those tests are normally not administered on witnesses. Davis said white people show the strongest cross-racial bias.
2:16 p.m. – Dr. Deborah Davis is back on the stand. The State continued questioning Dr. Davis about memory, suggestions and false reports. The State took Dr. Davis through hypothetical situations. For example, after a witness supposedly has a conversation in 1996, that witness recounts the conversation in 2019 and comes forward with the conversation because there was some “stuff” that fell in line about a suspect.
Prosecutor Travis Bragg gave several other examples that clearly resembled witness testimonies regarding Reed, Fennell and Stites. Dr. Davis said memories fade with passage of time, and false memories can be vivid because they’re more recently constructed and more elaborate.
12 p.m. – Prosecutor Travis Bragg continues questioning Davis. Davis discusses absentmindedness, expectation affect memory and memory distortion – the idea that we can remember something that never happened at all and that what we believe and what influences us also affect our memory.
Davis says you can see an image in the media and it can get blended in your mind and confused as a real memory. These false memories can be vivid and are so real for people that they're called "honest liars" because they have or someone else has convinced them that the memory is true.
Back from break. P rosecutor, Travis Bragg, continued questioning, Dr. Davis. She talked about how absent mindedness & expectation affect memory. Memory distortion: can remember something that never happened at all. What we believe and what influences us also affect our memory.
Davis says the need to explain is a drive behind false memories in cases such as sexual abuse cases. The more vague the original memory is, the higher the chance that outside influences can affect the memory, Davis says. She says if someone agrees with you about an event, it can make you more confident in your opinion.
Davis says if someone spent time consuming media about a topic, that would affect and/or distort their memory. Bragg points to several binders of newspaper articles of Rodney Reed, Jimmy Fennell and Stacey Stites sitting beneath the judge's bench. The defense objects.
Court breaks for lunch. Testimony will resume at 1:30 p.m.
10:50 a.m. – The State starts with Dr. Deborah Davis. She says identifying a stranger is harder than someone you know and most eyewitness identification is difficult because witnesses don’t know them. She says it's easier if lighting is good and not far away. Davis says, for example, in a police line-up, if a suspect is not there, the wrong person is picked one out of five times. In experiments where a target is present, people picked the right target less than 50% of the time, Davis says.
Davis says that in suspect line-ups, there are a lot of errors because people just look alike. She says the problem becomes magnified when one race tries to identify another race, called cross-race bias. She says more errors are involved when cross-race bias is involved.
Davis says the passage of time affects memory for everything. She says we forget very rapidly at first and, over time, memory keeps decreasing. Davis says there is less left to lose over time, and people overestimate their own memory all the time, even though they know their own memory is terrible.
Davis also says distance can affect visibility, which can affect memory. She says lighting and how complex the scene is can affect memory-selective attention.
The hearing takes a 15-minute break after this testimony.
10:05 a.m. – The State's first witness of the day is Sgt. Brian Seales with the Texas Attorney General’s Office. Seales testifies that he was asked by the prosecution on Saturday to search for Jimmy Fennell’s name in Austin Chronicle articles. Seales says he found one in 2008 with a picture: Fennell pleading guilty to kidnapping and sexual misconduct.
The State's second witness of the day is Dr. Deborah Davis. The State establishes her as an expert in eyewitness memory. In cross-examination, Dr. Davis says there has not been as much research done for memory recall as other areas.
The defense objects to Davis' testimony, saying she isn’t qualified and not relevant to the case. The State says Davis will talk about the reliability of the 20 to 25-year-old testimony of defense witnesses.
The State says there has been additional research since the 2007 paper the defense brought up. Davis also says she has testified for the military. Davis says the principles of memory are a legitimate field and have been studied since the late 1800s.
Davis says a huge delay affects memory, and the defense objects again. The judge asks if Davis will be determining which witness is lying. The judge says that’s not appropriate.
The judge later allows Davis as a witness.
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The entire KVUE report can be read at:
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