Tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m., the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will hear oral argument as to whether the conviction and death sentence of Rodney Reed should be overturned because of mounting evidence of Reed’s innocence. Reed is represented by former Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Morris Overstreet, Bryce Benjet of Hull Henricks and MacRae LLP, and lawyers from Texas Defender Service.
The hearing is open to the public.
The CCA has requested argument on whether evidence of Mr. Reed’s innocence – including significant evidence that another person committed the crime – should now be considered by the Court in Reed’s appeals. The Court is reviewing a wealth of evidence of Reed’s innocence that was available to the prosecution at the time of trial but was not disclosed to the defense and was not considered by the jury that heard Reed’s trial. The Court is also considering recently-discovered evidence that implicates another suspect.
Mr. Reed has been appealing his conviction for almost a decade, since his 1998 conviction and death sentence for the murder of Stacey Stites in the rural Texas town of Bastrop. At the time she was murdered, Ms. Stites was engaged to a Giddings Police Officer, who has long been considered a suspect in the case. Since Mr. Reed’s conviction, important new evidence has been discovered that challenges the fairness of his conviction and underscores his continued assertions of innocence.
Earlier coverage or the Rodney Reed case is here.
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