Update on death row case involving a scheduled government execution of a seemingly innocent man that is set to take place later this month
Polk county GOP writes resolution supporting clemency
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Convicted murderer Rodney Reed will die by lethal injection on Nov. 20, unless Gov. Greg Abbott grants him a reprieve.
As it stands, there’s no indication that Abbott will. He has only stopped one execution since becoming governor five years ago.
Reed was sentenced to death in 1998, after being convicted of the brutal 1996 rape and killing of a 19-year-old woman from central Texas, Stacey Stites. And though the governor has yet to weigh in on this specific case, he supports capital punishment, as do most voters in the state.
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And on Tuesday, a bipartisan group of 26 state representatives — 13 Democrats and 13 Republicans, including several members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus — called for Reed’s execution to be delayed, at least.
“As you know, the case that put Mr. Reed on death row has been called into serious question by compelling new witness statements and forensic evidence along with evidentiary gaps that could be filled with additional investigation and testing,” they wrote in a Nov. 5 letter to Abbott and David Gutiérrez, the chairman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.
For example, the murder weapon — a belt, which was used to strangle Stites — has never been tested for DNA evidence. And several witnesses have come forward since Reed’s trial to vouch that he had a seemingly friendly relationship with Stites — and share disturbing accounts of Fennell’s behavior both before and after her death.
“The evidence today is not what the evidence was in 1998, or even what it was back 5 years ago when I looked at the case,” she told me Friday, adding that the strength of the evidence that’s come to light since then is as notable as its volume. One of the witnesses who’s come forward, for example, has sworn that Fennell confessed to the murder of Stites some years ago, in a private conversation — and that witness, like the others who’ve come forward, has no personal connection to Reed.
The legislators warned, in their letter, that a rush to execution would undermine support for the concept of the death penalty, among other things: “Killing Rodney Reed without certainty about his guilt may exacerbate that issue and erode public trust — not only in capital punishment, but in Texas justice itself.”
That seems like a safe bet, given the attention Reed’s case has received in recent weeks. The European Union has called on Abbott to pardon Reed outright. And celebrities on both sides of the aisle have already urged the governor to intervene in other ways.
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Fennell was never charged in connection with Stites’ murder, but in 2007 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of kidnapping a woman and improper sexual misconduct while serving as a Georgetown police officer. The woman alleged he had raped her, according to news reports.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Grieder-Gov-Abbott-should-grant-death-row-14821465.phpThe victim's ex was a particularly bad cop that served jail time for kidnapping and sexual misconduct and was accused of rape.
Seems plausible that he did it and not Reed, who is scheduled to be executed on the 20th.