The majority opinion, written by Judge Michael Keasler is here.
"Man on death row will not get new trial, state says," is today's Austin American-Statesman report by Isadora Vail and Steven Kreytak.
The state's highest criminal court on Wednesday denied the most recent bid for a new trial by death row inmate Rodney Reed, convicted a decade ago in the brutal Bastrop County strangling and sexual assault of 19-year-old Stacey Stites.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, in the most robust review to date of the controversial case, issued a 100-page opinion that evaluates in painstaking detail much of the evidence presented at Reed's 1998 trial and raised by his lawyers in the years since the guilty verdict.
The opinion also evaluates some of the claims made by Reed's lawyers that Stites' fiance when she was killed, Jimmy Fennell, could be the real murderer. Fennell was a Giddings police officer at the time and went on to become a Georgetown police officer. He is serving 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in September to kidnapping and improper sexual activity with a person in custody.
Wednesday's court opinion noted some of the evidence that Reed's lawyers say suggests Fennell's involvement — including that he gave deceptive answers in a polygraph test during the investigation — "arouse a healthy suspicion that Fennell had some involvement in Stacey's death."
But, the opinion said, "we are not convinced that Reed has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that no reasonable juror, confronted with this evidence, would have found (Fennell) guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."
And:
In fact, it still could take years before Reed is executed. He is eligible to appeal in federal District Court, to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans and the U.S. Supreme Court.
First, though, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals must consider several appeals that were not addressed in Wednesday's opinion, said Bryce Benjet, one of Reed's lawyers.
Those include requests for a new trial based on Fennell's conviction in the recent Williamson County case, Benjet said.
One filing references the corrupt administration of former Bastrop County Sheriff Richard Hernandez, whose office participated in the investigation of Stites' death, Benjet said.
This year, Hernandez was sentenced to 90 days in jail and 10 years of probation for six felony counts, including theft by a public servant and abuse of official capacity. Among other offenses, Hernandez admitted using inmate labor and county materials to build barbecue pits he sold for profit.
"None of this evidence is ever mentioned in the 100-page opinion by the court," Benjet said at a new conference outside the Court of Criminal Appeals, near the Capitol. "It doesn't make sense to do it piecemeal."
"We are certain that if a jury would consider all of the issues in this case" at a retrial, they would acquit Reed, Benjet said.
The Texas high criminal court affirmed Reed's conviction in 2000 and two years later rejected his request for a new hearing and sent the case to federal court. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel sent the case back to the state for review, citing a federal law that requires new evidence to be considered in state court before a federal judge weighs in.
In 2006, state District Judge Reva Towslee Corbett in Bastrop held a two-day hearing on the testimony of two witnesses:
• Martha Barnett, who said she saw Stites and fiance Jimmy Fennell Jr. together almost two hours after Reed was said to have killed her.
• Mary Blackwell, who said Fennell bragged that he would strangle his girlfriend, using a belt to prevent fingerprints, if he learned she had cheated on him.
Corbett ruled that the evidence would not have changed the outcome of Reed's trial and sent her findings to the Court of Criminal Appeals, which held oral arguments this year.
Wednesday's opinion was the first time the judges considered the importance of those witnesses and of a claim by Reed's lawyers that some empty Busch Light Beer cans found near Stites' body could link Fennell to the crime scene. The state's DNA analysis of those cans could not exclude fellow Giddings police officer David Hall, a friend of Fennell's, according to court documents.
The Houston Chronicle carries this AP report, which includes coverage of the Reed ruling.
Also Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied death row inmate Rodney Reed's request for a new trial in the 1996 abduction, rape and murder of a Central Texas woman.
Reed contended the two were romantically involved, even though 19-year-old Stacey Lee Stites was engaged to marry a police officer when she was killed.
Reed's attorneys accused prosecutors of withholding evidence and said they had new proof of Reed's innocence: DNA on beer cans found near the murder scene, a rural Bastrop County roadside about 30 miles southeast of Austin. Prosecutors denied wrongdoing.
"Reed has failed to prove that the state suppressed evidence ... (and) Reed has also failed to meet the requisite, gateway standard of innocence — showing that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him in light of the new evidence not presented at trial," Judge Michael Keasler wrote in the ruling.
The Rodney Reed index is here.
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