June 8
TEXAS:
Below is an article about Rodney Reed, an innocent Texas death row prisoner,
from the latest New Abolitionist issue. Those of you who have attended the
CEDP's convention over the years have likely had the pleasure of meeting
Rodney's mother, Sandra Reed, who has been a tireless
fighter for justice for her son and all those who have been unjustly locked up.
Please do what you can to spread the word about Rodney's case and the horrors
of the Texas death penalty.
The article also quotes Caitlin Adams, who is Rodney's good friend. She writes
a blog called "Justice for Rodney Reed" that chronicles their visits and
introduces us to Rodney beyond the details of his case. There is a new blog
post up today that people can check out and share:
http://www.nodeathpenalty.org/words
We also encourage folks to check out the Get the Facts section of our website
where folks can access a print version of Rodney's fact sheet and find
information about what you can do to help with Rodney's case.
http://www.nodeathpenalty.org/new_abolitionist/april-2012-issue-56/texas-death-row-case-rodney-reed
From Texas death row, the case of Rodney Reed
By: Marlene Martin
These days, it’s not shocking to hear about an innocent person on death row, so
it won’t be surprising to learn that Rodney Reed is just such a person.
Rodney has been caged on Texas death row for the past 14 years. He was
convicted by an all-white jury in 1998 of raping and killing 19-year-old Stacey
Stites in the town of Bastrop, Texas. But it seems that the only thing Rodney
is guilty of is being Black and daring to have a
relationship with a white woman, who was engaged to a white police officer,
Jimmy Fennell.
Early on the morning of April 23, 1996, Stacey failed to show up for work. That
afternoon, her body was found in a wooded area. She had been strangled to death
with a belt, and her body lay partly clothed in the grass. Several beer cans
were found at the site. The pickup truck she
usually drove to work, which belonged to Jimmy Fennell, was found miles away in
a high school parking lot.
The only physical evidence linking Rodney to the crime was semen found in and
on Stacey’s body. No hair, skin or fibers connecting Rodney to the crime scene
or the truck were found anywhere. Rodney says that he was seeing Stacey off and
on, and the two were intimate in the days before she was killed.
At Rodney’s trial, the state presented evidence not challenged by his lawyers
that Stacey had been raped at or near the time of the murder. But prominent
forensic experts have since confirmed that there is essentially no evidence of
rape—and that the evidence merely suggests that Rodney and Stacey had sex
within a week of her death.
In the small Texas town where Rodney lived, people were likely to take notice
of the relationship between Rodney and Stacey. In fact, 11 people were prepared
to speak at Rodney’s trial or had written affidavits attesting to the fact that
they had seen the two together. But only two
of these witnesses were heard from at the trial.
The state claims that Rodney abducted Stacey and drove her in the pickup truck
to the wooded area where she was found. But none of Rodney’s fingerprints were
found in or on the truck.
Only prints for Stacey and her fiancé Jimmy were found. Rodney’s fingerprints
likewise weren’t found on the murder weapon, nor on Stacey’s name badge nor
anything else found at the crime scene.
There are huge holes in the state’s case against Rodney. For example, Jimmy
Fennell, a former Giddings, Texas, police officer, has failed two lie detector
tests when asked the question “Did you strangle Stacey Stites?” Yet Fennell was
never pursued as a suspect. “Why wasn’t he?”
asks one of Reed’s first lawyers, Jimmy Brown. “It makes no common sense…It was
clear he’d failed the polygraph—not once, but twice. My question to the state
was, how is that? Why do you not consider him a suspect? There was no answer.”
The pickup truck that Stacey is believed to have driven the morning she died
was given back to Fennell just six days after the crime, and Fennell promptly
sold it. Police never searched the apartment Stacey and Jimmy shared, the last
place she was known to be alive.
A friend of Stacey’s, Ronnie Reveal, told investigators, he talked with Stacey
shortly before her death. “… She seemed quite a bit down. She told him that her
and her boyfriend were having problems and also that the boyfriend had a
violent temper.” Reveal was never called to testify at trial.
Police never searched the apartment Stacey and Jimmy were living in, which is
the last place she was known to be alive. According to other police officers
this would be standard practice.
When Stacey’s body was examined by investigators, they saw that her nails had
been cut to the quick, but not filed—something a police officer would know to
do to lessen the chance of being identified by fingernail scrapings. This was
never presented to the jury.
Since his conviction, Rodney has won an evidentiary hearing where he was able
to present evidence never heard during his original trial. For example,
prosecutors had withheld from Rodney’s lawyers the fact that the two beer cans
found at the crime scene were tested for DNA.
The report excluded Rodney, but stated that the cans contained a mixture of DNA
that might have come from Stacey and two police officers. One of these officers
committed suicide before Rodney’s trial, and the other was a good friend,
co-worker and neighbor of Jimmy Fennell.
Subsequent DNA testing of the beer cans ruled out Stacey and one of the
officers, but the other officer couldn’t be ruled out as a DNA match.
Had this information been presented at trial it would have been devastating to
the state’s case.
Also not presented at Rodney’s original trial was the testimony of two
important witnesses.
One, Mary Barnett, saw Stacey and Jimmy in the midst of an argument in the
parking lot of a convenience store in the early morning hours on the day she
was murdered. This was at a time when Fennell testified he was at home and
asleep. This eyewitness account was conveyed to the district attorney before
Rodney’s trial, but never disclosed to the defense.
Another witness, Police Officer Mary Blackwell, said she heard Fennel, in a
police academy class, say that if he ever found out that his girlfriend was
cheating on him, he’d “strangle her, and would avoid leaving fingerprints by
using a belt.” As it turned out, Stacey was killed with a belt. Blackwell also
witnessed Fennell being abusive toward Stacey. Again, this information was
transmitted to law enforcement, but was never followed up, nor disclosed to the
defense.
Despite this compelling evidence presented at Rodney’s evidentiary hearing in
2006, Judge Reva Towslee Corbett, the daughter of the original trial judge in
the case, ruled against Rodney. She signed a lengthy ruling that was copied
verbatim from a document prepared by the state, denying all of Rodney’s claims
and saying, in essence, that the evidence wouldn’t have
affected the jury’s decision.
In 2008, the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals denied Rodney again, sending his
case back into the federal courts, where it remains.
“I hope and pray for his freedom everyday,” says Rodney’s mother Sandra Reed,
who is an active abolitionist, “ He’s tired. I’m tired. We’re all tired. It has
caused a strain across the board, not just for Rodney, but also for all of us
because we are a family. It’s hard.” She goes on to say, “I never dreamed that
the truth would be covered up for 14 years. There is such corruption in the
justice system.
If they had just let the truth be told, Rodney would have been home a long time
ago.
I am someone that always believed in the justice system. I thought, well,
nothing is perfect, but that the good outweighs the bad. But, it appears that
the bad outweighs the good when it comes to the justice system. Now I see, it’s
all about greed, money and power.”
The Reed family along with activists from the Campaign to End the Death Penalty
and other abolitionist groups have marched in Bastrop and participated in the
annual Texas abolition marches. Sandra Reed speaks on panels and at marches to
try to help her son, but also to advocate for an end to the death penalty. The
Reeds have a banner hanging outside of their house that reads, “Innocent man on
death row, Free Rodney Reed.”
One person who noticed the banner in front of the Reed’s house is Caitlin
Adams. She moved to Bastrop in 2010 and, curious about the sign, approached
family members one day when she saw them on the porch. Since then, Caitlin has
written about the case and visited Rodney many times. She has created a blog
that brings to life the humanness behind the prison walls where Rodney is
unjustly imprisoned.
Caitlin does this even as her own health deteriorates from ALS, a neuromuscular
disease that is weakening her muscles, making it difficult for her to walk and
speak. But she feels she was meant to meet Rodney, and the encounters with him
have given her a fresh outlook on life:
“I’m reminded with every visit what the important things are in life,” she
says. “I’ve visited Rodney, almost weekly since September, and I can only tell
you he is inspiring to me, a good person and friend. I’ve spent a lot of time
researching his case, and I am convinced he is completely innocent.”
Activists in Austin and Bastrop have plans to show the excellent documentary
about Rodney’s case State vs. Reed in the community center in Bastrop. “We have
to keep the pressure up, we can’t leave it up to the courts, because they have
failed Rodney for the past 14 years,“ says
Lily Hughes.
While activists are convinced of Rodney’s innocence, there are those who are
not. Rodney’s detractors point to several allegations of abuse toward women.
But Rodney was never prosecuted for any of these allegations, except one, where
Rodney was acquitted at trial.
Nevertheless, the facts of this case speak for themselves: the many instances
of misconduct by police, the botched investigation, the withholding of
exculpatory evidence by prosecutors, and the inadequate defense during the
original trial. All of this at the very least should mean a new trial for
Rodney—something that Rodney, his family, friends, and activists are still
hoping for.
In fact, there is mounting evidence pointing to Jimmy Fennell as the likely
suspect, an avenue that Rodney’s defense team continues to pursue. In 2008,
Fennel pled guilty after being charged with kidnapping and raping a woman in
2007 while on duty as a police officer in the city of Georgetown, Texas. He is
currently serving a 10-year sentence.
Bryce Benjet, one of Rodney’s current lawyers, says, “We have developed a trove
of evidence that shows that Rodney is innocent and suggests that Jimmy Fennell,
assisted by others, murdered Stacey and dumped her body in the woods. Based on
his racist and violent nature, Jimmy Fennell certainly had motive and
opportunity to kill Stacey. Further, his leaving her body in a remote location
matches his conduct in two other attacks on women. We are confident that the
federal courts will listen to the hard facts of the case and give Rodney the
new trial he so clearly deserves.”
Rodney remains hopeful that “justice for all” will one day include him and is
thankful for the efforts of activists on his behalf.
(source: CEDP)
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