GUILTY TX - Stacey Stites, 19, found murdered, Bastrop, 23 April 1996 *Appeal denied*

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I am so glad to see this thread here. I saw this Rodney Reed show last night and it is a horrible injustice to not only him but like he said, to the victim and her family. That cop (filthy dirty cop) should be sitting where Rodney is and I cannot believe not one person is listening to Mr. Joe Schillaci and his partner concerning Rodney Reed. This man is going to die because of the dirty cops in that community. You know how you can feel things deep in your bones? Well, that is how much I believe that that Dirty Rotten Murdering Cop Stacey was engaged to killed her and raped everyone of those girls, yes even the one who is adamant that Rodney Reed raped her (however I will concede that I may be totally off on her). I believe she is terrified of LE and will never say the truth as she fears for her own life.
Rodney Reed will die March 5th if NO ONE LISTENS. Of course the jury convicted and sentenced him to death the way he was railroaded.
I should also tell you... I believe whole heartily in the death penalty and I have never seen a story like this one. Rodney Reed needs to be released from prison YESTERDAY much less years ago and I hope someone intervenes so that he is release from prison and I hope he sues each and every one of the people that put him there, not the victims of that low down dirty cop but LE and others who went along with this injustice and knew what the truth WAS and IS behind this horrible, horrible crime.
Thank you for letting me vent.
 
wonders said:
... and I have never seen a story like this one....
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Most people are not aware yet
a) there have been quite a few people executed who were later shown almost certainly innocent,
b) when a death penalty case is weak the prosecution will often go for 'life in prison' instead. So for every person erroneously sent to death there are even more erroneously sent to prison til death, Google "Esar Met",
c) there have been cases of extreme fraud in laboratories that handle DNA evidence, so occasionally, though not common, a person has had 100% proof they were guilty but later shown innocent.
Examples
Quick example http://m.sfgate.com/news/article/Human-error-calls-validity-of-DNA-testing-into-2644730.php
Older article http://www.truthinjustice.org/inside-labs.htm
Detailed Overview http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~mueller/error rates.html
NYC medical examiner http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/n...-technicians-errors-in-handling-evidence.html
Illinois State Police Lab http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/chi-010114roscetti-story.html#page=1
Washington State Patrol, older article http://m.seattlepi.com/local/article/DNA-testing-mistakes-at-the-State-Patrol-crime-1149846.php
U.K. http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2012/10/lgc-forensics-lab-error-rape-accused
800 rape cases, not 80 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/11/possible-dna-errors-in-80-rape-new-york_n_2455344.html
And that is DNA evidence. More mistakes with other kinds of tests http://www.cbsnews.com/news/massach...-for-alleged-improper-handling-of-drug-tests/

So unfortunately if there is going to be a death penalty then even if you execute people who are 100% proven guilty, you are still killing some random innocent people. 3% to 5% of people in jail overall in the U.S. are innocent but the percent ntage for violent major crimes is actually higher for many reasons.
 
A quick summary of more recent evidence in this case parahrased from https://firstlook.org/theintercept/...veals-texas-may-execute-innocent-man-march-5/

Lividity is how blood pools in the body after death. From that, experts say the victim was murdered and remained in one position for at least 4 hours, during which blood pooled a certain way. She was then moved to the place where she was found, but her body was not placed in the same position. This shows the fiance was lying about the timeline.

Further, the evidence of "few sperm" was presented in a scientifically inaccurate way by the prosecution. That evidence, which was used by the prosecution to help convict, actually helps the defense if you use real science and not Texis Agerculteral Medisin Skool science.
 
I wont mention names but I knew a guy the innocence project helped, he was in prison for a rape he didn't commit, the tragedy is that in the 19 years he spent there he was castrated. So my point being , it sure does happen!
 
A common & despicable claim of many rapist/murderers is that they had consensual sex. The dead can't refute.
 
bwt42 said:
A common & despicable claim of many rapist/murderers is that they had consensual sex. The dead can't refute.
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Rape can be culturally subjective, but murder is not. Some people, perhaps a majority in the world today, would laugh at the notion of spousal rape.

In this particular case, it is interesting that when the victim was at work, according to a coworker, she was happy to see Reed but would hide when her fiance came by. Which kind of indicates she was not even a consensual fiance.
 
http://www.lexingtonleader.com/news/2015-02-26/Front_Page/Reed_Granted_Stay_of_Execution.html

The Texas court of criminal appeals has issued a stay of execution for Rodney Reed 10 days before he was scheduled to be put to death for the 1996 murder of Giddings resident, Stacey Stites, which he insists he did not commit. Reed has been on death row for nearly 17 years.

In a 6-2 verdict on Monday that was a response to an appeal filed by Reed’s lawyers, the court stayed the lethal injection that was scheduled for March 5. The court did not explain its decision.
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http://kxan.com/investigative-story/...ney-reed-case/


*snip*

KXAN now hears, for the first time, a member of the original jury that convicted Reed of capital murder. She says the trial evidence persuaded her to vote guilty, but new information raises doubts about that decision.

“I have questions about whether Rodney was really guilty,” said the juror, who spoke on a condition of anonymity to CrimeWatch Daily. “Since then there have been a lot of things that I’ve learned in that 20 years, heard about, that have made me wonder if Rodney was framed.”

ETA: Sword and Scale did a 2-part podcast on this case. Some parts are hard to listen to, but yeah, IMO definitely a questionable conviction
 
Habeas relief denied by the CCA based on DNA testing.

http://www.search.txcourts.gov/Searc...9-ad7c3d36e773

[h=1]Texas Death Row Inmate Loses Appeal Seeking New DNA Testing[/h]
The state's top criminal appeals court is refusing to allow additional DNA testing of evidence in the lengthy Central Texas death penalty case of Reed. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals says the request by Reed's attorneys was the latest of a number of legal moves to unreasonably delay his execution for the April 1996 abduction, rape and strangling of 19-year-old Stacy Stites.
Click to expand...
 
In a major setback for death row inmate Rodney Reed, a judge has recommended that the Bastrop man’s request for a new trial be denied by the state’s highest criminal court.

Defense lawyers had argued that newly discovered evidence bolstered their theory that Stacey Stites was murdered in 1996 by her fiance, Jimmy Fennell, not Reed.

They pointed to a 2016 TV interview given by Curtis Davis, who was good friends with Fennell and Stites, in which Davis recalled Fennell saying 20 years ago that he had gone out drinking and returned to the Giddings apartment he shared with Stites between 10 and 11 p.m. the night before she died.

http://www.statesman.com/news/judge...uld-not-get-new-trial/cZjCll5agQBImsiFTj5RHM/
 
JerseyGirl said:
In a major setback for death row inmate Rodney Reed, a judge has recommended that the Bastrop man’s request for a new trial be denied by the state’s highest criminal court.

Defense lawyers had argued that newly discovered evidence bolstered their theory that Stacey Stites was murdered in 1996 by her fiance, Jimmy Fennell, not Reed.

They pointed to a 2016 TV interview given by Curtis Davis, who was good friends with Fennell and Stites, in which Davis recalled Fennell saying 20 years ago that he had gone out drinking and returned to the Giddings apartment he shared with Stites between 10 and 11 p.m. the night before she died.

http://www.statesman.com/news/judge...uld-not-get-new-trial/cZjCll5agQBImsiFTj5RHM/
Click to expand...

Unbelievable. There's still hope with the Appeals Court.
 
Supreme Court rejects Rodney Reed request for DNA testing

"...“Rodney Reed has asked for DNA testing of crime scene evidence that would unquestionably have been tested if the murder were investigated today,” said Bryce Benjet, Reed’s lead lawyer.

Prosecutors have fought to deny Reed access to the evidence for about four years, arguing that it would not be helpful in solving the 1996 Bastrop-area murder of Stacey Stites because the items had been contaminated by repeated handling during and after Reed’s trial...."

Supreme Court rejects Rodney Reed request for DNA testing

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Rodney Reed - The Murder of Stacey Stites

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Death row inmate Rodney Reed’s lawyers file lawsuit after denied request for DNA testing

BASTROP, Texas (KXAN) — Lawyers for Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the State of Texas Thursday. According to Reed’s attorneys, the suit is due to repeated denied requests for DNA testing.

Rodney Reed was convicted of murdering 19-year-old Stacy Stites in 1996, but his family thinks he was wrongfully convicted. They have been fighting for years to get Reed a new trial.

DNA from the Stites case matched Reed, but he said he had a secret and consensual relationship with her. Reed’s attorney believes new evidence will show Stites; fiance at the time, Jimmy Fennell, killed her. Fennell, then a Georgetown Police Officer, was later sentenced to 10 years in prison for an unrelated crime.

Reed’s lawyers say a DNA of the murder weapon will prove his innocence. They say a denial to perform such a test violates Reed’s constitutional rights.

The lawsuit comes just a week after a Bastrop District court set Reed’s execution date to Nov. 20, 2019.

“If this case were investigated today, the murder weapon would unquestionably have been tested and could provide evidence of Mr. Reed’s innocence. Instead, his fundamental right to due process has been violated and an execution date has been set,” said Bryce Benjet, Reed’s lawyer and senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project. “It simply makes no sense that the state would attempt to execute a person without conducting this basic forensic investigation.”
 
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