The StandDown Texas Project

Former Judges Back Rodney Reed Appeal

Today's Austin American-Statesman reports, "Eight ex-judges support appeal of death row inmate Rodney Reed."  It's by Chuck Lindell.

Eight retired federal and state judges on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to accept an appeal by Rodney Reed, who faces a January execution in the 1996 rape and murder of 19-year-old Stacey Stites in Bastrop County.

The former judges said they were taking no position on Reed’s claim of innocence or his insistence that he should be granted a new trial because he received poor representation from his trial lawyers.

Rather, they said in a friend-of-the-court brief submitted Monday, that the Supreme Court should intervene because a lower appeals court did not follow the correct procedure when it rejected Reed’s appeal in January.

According to the retired judges’ brief, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should have ordered a district judge to review Reed’s claims — hearing live witnesses who were cross-examined by lawyers — but instead engaged in improper fact-finding based on a “cold record” of briefs and affidavits.

And:

The retired federal judges in the brief were Royal Furgeson of Texas, appointed by President Bill Clinton; U.W. Clemon of Alabama, appointed by President Carter; Lee Sarokin of New Jersey, appointed by Carter and Clinton; Stephen Orlofsky of New Jersey, appointed by Clinton; and W. Thomas Dillard, a nonappointed magistrate judge in Tennessee.

The state judges included Charles Baird, a Democrat who served eight years on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and four years as a district judge in Austin; Sol Wachtler, a Republican formerly with the New York Supreme Court; and Oliver Diaz Jr., formerly with the Mississippi Supreme Court in a nonpartisan position.

The amicus brief in Reed v. Stephens is available in Adobe .pdf format.

Earlier coverage of Rodney Reed's case begins at the link.

5th Circuit Panel Rejects Rodney Reed Petition

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit's ruling in Reed v. Stephens is available in Adobe .pdf format.

"Rodney Reed’s innocence claim rejected in Bastrop County murder," is by Chuck Lindell in the American-Statesman.

A federal appeals court has denied an appeal by Rodney Reed, leaving the death row inmate with limited options to avoid lethal injection in the 1996 rape and murder of Stacey Stites in Bastrop County.

Reed’s lawyers argue that he is innocent of the crime and that Stites was murdered by somebody else — most likely her fiance, Jimmy Fennell, who years later was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping a woman in his custody as a Georgetown police officer.

Reed argued that he and Stites were engaged in a secret affair, explaining the presence of his semen in her body, and his lawyers presented testimony from two medical experts who concluded that the semen had likely been deposited at least 24 hours — and as long as one week — before Stites was killed.

But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected those arguments, ruling Friday that Reed’s innocence claim lacked credibility.

Instead of establishing Reed’s innocence, the experts at best provided an alternate scenario that lacked solid scientific support, a three-judge panel of the court ruled.

And:

Reed’s lawyers have vowed to continue challenging his conviction through every legal avenue available.

The most likely next step, defense lawyer Bryce Benjet said, will be to ask all 14 judges on the appeals court to rehear the case, though such requests are rarely granted. If that fails, the final step would be appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, which also rarely grants review of cases. An execution date cannot be set until the appeals process ends.

Earlier coverage of Rodney Reed's case begins at the link.

The Austin Chronicle's archive of Rodney Reed articles, is an excellent resource for those following the case.

Former Travis County Medical Examiner on the Rodney Reed Case

Jordan Smith posts, "Bayardo Says State's Case Against Rodney Reed is Wrong; Explosive information filed in federal court," at the Austin Chronicle.  Here's the top of this must-read for those following this long-controversial case:

Former Travis County Medical Examiner Roberto Bayardo says his testimony in the 1998 capital trial of Rodney Reed for the sexual assault and killing of Stacey Stites was misconstrued by prosecutors to suggest a solid timeline for Stites' death, and to prove that Reed had sexually assaulted Stites. But that, he now says, is not at all what he found.

Instead, Bayardo says in legal declaration that it looks like Stites suffered from an anal rape – one more likely committed with a "rod-like instrument, such as a police baton." That conclusion suggests even more strongly, Reed's attorneys argue, that someone other than Reed murdered Stites before leaving her body on the side of a country road in 1996. Indeed, at the time of her murder Stites was engaged to then-Giddings Police Officer Jimmy Fennell, who is now in prison for the kidnap and sexual assault of a woman while on-duty as a Georgetown cop in 2007. (Fennell pleaded guilty in 2008 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.)

Bayardo's revelation is among several containing potentially explosive new information that were filed in an Aug. 13 brief in federal court, objecting to a federal magistrate's June opinion that Reed's federal appeals, including his innocence claim, should be denied. In short, Magistrate Judge Andrew Austin ruled on June 15 that Reed's DNA found in Stites' vaginal cavity is "significant – indeed…perhaps conclusive – evidence of his guilt." That ruling has been forwarded to Judge Lee Yeakel for consideration; Reed's attorneys Bryce Benjet and Andrew MacRae this week filed the new information, asking Yeakel to reject Austin's conclusions, to review all the available evidence, to hold an evidentiary hearing on the case, and, ultimately, to either retry or release Reed.

The latest filing by Rodney Reed's attorneys, including the Bayardo declaration and Barbisch affidavit, are availabe in Adobe .pdf format.

The Austin Chronicle's archive of Rodney Reed articles, is an excellent resource.

Earlier coverage of Rodney Reed's case begins at the link.

An Update on the Rodney Reed Case

"Judge Recommends Rejecting Rodney Reed Appeal," is the title of Jordan Smith's report in the Austin Chronicle.  Here's the opening:

In an 82-page report to District Judge Lee Yeakel, federal Magistrate Judge Andrew Austin on June 15 recommended that the federal appeal of Rodney Reed be denied. Reed was convicted and sentenced to die in 1998 for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites, after DNA found on vaginal swabs taken from Stites were an affirmative match for Reed. "If Reed has no innocent explanation for the sperm found in ... Stites' vagina being his, then the DNA match is significant – indeed ... perhaps conclusive – evidence of his guilt," Austin wrote. Whether Yeakel will agree with that conclusion remains to be seen.

The state contends that Reed, while on foot, overcame 19-year-old Giddings resident Stites as she drove to Bastrop for an early morning shift at H-E-B, and that the semen found in Stites is the "Cinderella's slipper" proving its case. Reed's supporters contend that a far more likely suspect is Jimmy Fennell, a former Giddings and Georgetown cop to whom Stites was engaged at the time of her murder. Fennell is currently serving a 10-year sentence for kidnapping and sexual assaulting a woman while on duty and responding to a call for service as a Georgetown cop. Reed's case has been wending its way through state and federal courts on appeal since 1999, and, in the intervening years, a mass of evidence has come to light that paints Fennell as a man with a troubling history of violence toward women – a history that Reed's supporters say bolsters their contention that Fennell murdered Stites after discovering that she was having a sexual affair with Reed.

Moreover, Reed's supporters and his lead lawyer, Bryce Benjet, say that the reason the state's theory of the case convinced jurors of Reed's guilt is that questionable medical evidence, presented by the state to demonstrate that Stites had been raped just before her killing, was not scientifically sound and was never challenged by Reed's trial attorneys, an oversight that Reed has said made those attorneys ineffective. (In March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a defendant should be allowed to argue ineffective assistance claims even if those issues were not raised at trial, so Benjet may next make that claim against former Reed appeal attorney Bill Barbisch for not arguing that Reed's trial attorneys were ineffective for failing to challenge the state's contention that Stites was raped.)

Smith also writes, "Rodney Reed: Another Innocent Man on Texas Death Row?" for the Nation.

At first glance, Texas’s capital case against Rodney Reed looks fairly persuasive.

Nineteen-year-old Stacey Stites was found dead in a wooded area just off a county road in Bastrop, Texas, in 1996. She was half-naked, with Reed’s DNA inside her. The DNA was the “Cinderella’s slipper,” special prosecutor Lisa Tanner told the jury at trial: it matched Reed’s; therefore, Reed was the murderer.

But what if it weren’t that simple?

It has been fourteen years since Reed was convicted and sentenced to die for Stites’s murder. Since then, evidence has accumulated that calls into question the state’s case against him—evidence that includes ineffective lawyering, possible prosecutorial misconduct, junk science and racial bias. Perhaps most damning, it also includes a failure by police to fully investigate a man with a troubling history of violence against women: Jimmy Fennell, Stites’s fiancé, a former police officer who is currently serving prison time for kidnapping and sexual assault.

Reed, who is black, has maintained his innocence and said that the DNA can be explained because he was having a sexual affair with Stites, who was white. In small-town Texas such an illicit, interracial relationship remains an explosive revelation—one that Reed’s supporters say infuriated Fennell, who is white, giving him a strong motive to harm his young bride-to-be.

Earlier coverage of Rodney Reed's case begins at the link.

The Latest in the Rodney Reed Case

Jordan Smith reports, "Rodney Reed Case Back in Court," for the latest issue of the Austin Chronicle.

The legal procedural drama that is the Rodney Reed death penalty case is back in federal court. On Dec. 22, 2009, lawyers for Reed filed a whopping 158-page brief in federal district court, laying out all the reasons Reed deserves a new day in court.

Reed was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1996 murder in Bastrop of 19-year-old Stacey Stites. The state said that Reed, while on foot, somehow overcame Stites as she drove to work for an early morning shift at H-E-B and that semen DNA found in Stites proves the state's case. Reed's defenders say the DNA evidence is only proof that the two were intimate and that in fact Reed was having a consensual relationship with Stites. A far more likely suspect in her murder, they say, is Jimmy Fennell, a former Georgetown police officer to whom Stites was engaged. Fennell is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a woman while on duty and responding to a call for police service.

The Reed case has been bounced back and forth between state and federal court since the late Nineties. When new evidence came to light about Fennell's alleged history of violence toward women, the case was removed from federal court and sent back to the Court of Criminal Appeals. To date, however, the CCA, Texas' highest criminal court, has denied Reed relief. "We're back where we were in 2002," said Reed attorney Bryce Benjet. Now, however, all of Reed's claims for relief are being presented in one appeal, as opposed to the piecemeal approach the CCA required.

Smith notes that Rodney Reed is trying to win an evidentiary hearing.  Earlier coverage is here.

CCA Again Rejects Rodney Reed's Appeal

The Court of Criminal Appeals order is here.

"Reed's death sentence again upheld," is the title of Chuck Lindell's report in today's Austin American-Statesman.

The state's highest criminal court has again rejected death row inmate Rodney Reed's claims that he did not kill Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old who was raped and strangled in Bastrop County in 1996.

Reed's case now is expected to move into the federal court system for his next — and final — round of appeals before his execution can be scheduled.

Reed's latest appeal built on allegations, contained in earlier court petitions, that Stites was murdered by her then-fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, a former Georgetown and Giddings police officer who was later sentenced to 10 years in prison for kidnapping and improper sexual activity with a woman in his custody.

But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Wednesday that the latest allegations against Fennell did not change the case against Reed.

"The allegations of Fennell's misconduct and domestic violence do not exonerate (Reed)," the court ruled in an unanimous, unsigned opinion. "The totality of the evidence before us still supports a guilty verdict."

Reed's latest appeal included information compiled by Georgetown police during their investigation into an October 2007 incident when Fennell responded to a domestic disturbance call, drove the woman to a secluded area in his patrol car and sexually assaulted her.

According to police reports detailed in Reed's appeal, Fennell also forced a woman he met during a Georgetown traffic stop in July 2007 to have sex with him, abused his now ex-wife and stalked a Giddings woman in 1997 while working for the Giddings Police Department.

Reed's lawyers argued that the new information, coupled with earlier allegations of Fennell's misconduct, points to Fennell as Stites' killer. They also claim no jury would have convicted Reed had it known about Fennell's abusive history with women.

Reed's appeal — his sixth petition for a writ of habeas corpus since his May 1998 conviction — also included a vague account of a woman who said she may have seen Reed and Stites together before the killing. Reed has asserted that his DNA was found on Stites' body because the two had a secret sexual relationship in the weeks before her death.

The Houston Chronicle carries the AP filing by Michael Graczyk, "Condemned inmate Rodney Reed loses appeal again."

Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed lost another appeal before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which on Wednesdsay rejected his claims that new evidence pointed to another man as the killer of a 19-year-old woman in Bastrop County 13 years ago.

In a sixth petition to the state's highest criminal appeals court, Reed's lawyers argued they had evidence suggesting the boyfriend of Stacey Stites as the person who abducted, raped and murdered her.

Stites' fiance, Jimmy Fennell, is a former police officer who later was jailed for abducting and having improper sexual activity with a woman in his custody.

The court, however, said the information submitted by Reed failed to show innocence and failed to show that prosecutors withheld it.

"The allegations of Fennell's misconduct and domestic violence do not exonerate (Reed)," the court said in a brief decision. "The totality of the evidence before us still supports a guilty verdict."

The latest challenge cited Fennell's misconduct as he worked as a police officer in Georgetown and earlier in Giddings. It also pointed to a report of domestic violence from Fennell's ex-wife and an affidavit of a "possible sighting of the victim and (Reed) together," according to the court.

Reed, 41, has insisted he and Stites had a continuing secret affair even though Stites was engaged to soon marry Fennell when her body was found along a rural road after she failed to show up for work at a supermarket in Bastrop, southeast of Austin.

Reed is black and Stites was white and Reed's lawyers have described the racial aspects of the case as explosive. The also accused prosecutors of improperly withholding evidence. Prosecutors denied any wrongdoing and disputed the claims of a secret relationship between the victim and Reed.

Earlier coverage is in the Rodney Reed category index.

New Claims in Bastrop Murder Appeal

That's the title of Steven Kreytak's report in today's Austin American-Statesman.  It's subtitled, "Reed's lawyers cite more sexual misconduct complaints in suggesting that former police officer Fennell killed fiancee."

Newly released allegations of sexual misconduct against former Georgetown police Sgt. Jimmy Fennell emerged this week in the latest appeal filed by lawyers for death row inmate Rodney Reed.

Reed was convicted in the 1996 Bastrop County murder of Stacey Stites, who was Fennell's fiancée at the time. Reed has maintained his innocence, and his lawyers have suggested that Fennell committed the crime.

The appeal continues the bid by Reed's lawyers to reveal Fennell, who is serving 10 years in prison for kidnapping and improper sexual activity with a person in custody, as a sexual predator with a history of abusing women.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has twice in recent months turned back bids by Reed for a new trial.

Filed Tuesday, the latest appeal includes fresh allegations from police reports, including that Fennell forced a woman he met during a traffic stop in July 2007 to have sex with him, that Fennell abused his wife and that he stalked a woman in Giddings in 1997.

"Jimmy Fennell has been a sexual predator for years," said Bryce Benjet, one of Reed's lawyers. "What we have been asking for is a chance for a jury to hear all of the facts in this case."

Fennell's criminal defense lawyer, Bob Phillips, called the additional accusations "questionable in their reliability."

The appeal also includes a vague account of a woman who said she may have seen Reed and Stites together before the killing, potentially significant evidence given Reed's assertion that his DNA was found on Stites' body because the two had a secret relationship.

Benjet said he has not had time to investigate the woman's account.

Earlier coverage is in the Rodney Reed category index.

CCA Again Denies New Trial for Rodney Reed

"Court again denies appeals by Rodney Reed," is Chuck Lindell's post at the Austin American-Statesman's Austin Legal blog.

The state’s highest criminal court today refused to grant a new trial to Rodney Reed, sentenced to death a decade ago in the Bastrop County murder and sexual assault of Stacey Stites, 19.

In December, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a 100-page opinion concluding that new information raised by Reed failed to establish his innocence and could not have swayed jurors to vote for his innocence if presented at trial.

Today’s rulings denied two remaining state appeals by Reed, presumably clearing way for his case to proceed to the next level of review in the federal courts.

But one of Reed’s appellate lawyers, Bryce Benjet, said he hopes to file another state appeal containing more information about “incidents of misconduct” by Stites’ fiance, Jimmy Fennell, a former police officer serving a prison sentence for kidnapping and improper sexual activity with a woman in his custody.

“We believe this also needs to be presented to the Court of Criminal Appeals. We are preparing that, and it will be filed shortly,” Benjet said.

Reed alleges that Fennell could have killed Stites. Fennell has consistently denied the allegation.

In one appeal denied Wednesday, Reed accused prosecutors of suppressing evidence that Fennell abused and stalked an ex-girlfriend. The information, Reed argued, supports his theory that Fennell murdered Stites — a theory the Court of Criminal Appeals found unconvincing in its December opinion.

The court ruled today, however, that the information from Fennell’s ex-girlfriend should have been raised in Reed’s first appeal. Because it was not, it is ineligible to be raised at a later date, the court said in an unsigned opinion.

The opinions are here and here.  Earlier coverage begins with this post.

More on Rodney Reed

Jordan Smith of the Austin Chronicle has provided some of the most comprehensive news coverage of developments in the Rodney Reed case over the years.  The Court of Criminal Appeals' recent decision is the topic of her latest, "No Relief for Rodney Reed."

Reed's case has been wading through the courts for nearly 10 years; his defenders have consistently questioned whether prosecutors withheld potentially exculpatory evidence. After a 2006 hearing on the matter in a Bastrop Co. district court, Judge Reva Towslee Corbett (whose father presided over Reed's original trial) concluded that there was not credible evidence to suggest the state had done anything wrong. In part because the judge simply adopted whole the findings of fact provided her by the state at the conclusion of the hearing, the CCA took up Reed's appeal to decide whether certain inaccuracies in those conclusions were enough to trigger some relief for Reed. But last week, the court ruled that they were not. A "few of the trial judge's fact findings were either unsupported by the record or appeared, in some fashion, to be misleading," Judge Michael Keasler wrote for the court. "Mindful of the role of an advocate, the trial judge as a neutral arbiter should have more carefully scrutinized the state's proposed findings to ensure that they accurately reflect the evidence before adopting them verbatim." Though Towslee Corbett did not do so – thus "unnecessarily complicating" its review of the case – the court ultimately found that the evidence the state withheld was not credible and would not have swayed a jury to acquit Reed. This conclusion is puzzling to Reed's attorney Bryce Benjet, who wonders how the CCA could simply rubber-stamp Towslee Corbett's findings after criticizing her for accepting the state's findings verbatim.

And:

Reed attorney Benjet says the ruling is, among other things, frustrating – in part, because the court still has pending before it three other related appeals concerning misconduct in Reed's case. "What is frustrating is that every time we learn a new fact, [the court] won't just let you go tell them about it. They require you to file a new appeal," he said, and that may be part of the reason the court considers the defense's theories incomplete. "They force us to proceed in this fashion and then say that we haven't presented this in a coherent fashion?"

Earlier coverage of the CCA ruling is here; the Rodney Reed index, here.

CCA Rejects New Trial for Rodney Reed

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.

Fennell Sentenced to 10 Years

Isadora Vail reports on the Austin American-Statesman website that the former law enforcement officer at the center of the Rodney Reed case was sentenced earlier today. "Fennell gets 10 years," is her post.

Former Georgetown Police Sgt. Jimmy Lewis Fennell Jr. showed little emotion this morning as state District Judge Burt Carnes sentenced him to 10 years behind bars.

Fennell pleaded guilty in May to felony charges of kidnapping and improper sexual activity with a person in custody. The charges come from an Oct. 26 incident in which Fennell responded to a domestic disturbance call at a woman’s home, and according to court documents, he forced the woman to come with him in his patrol car, dance for him and have sex with him.

Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley said today despite what he calls a flawed investigation by the Georgetown Police Department, he was satisfied with the case.

“I think this case shows that officers are not above the law in Williamson County and they do not get treated differently from other offenders,” Bradley said in a press conference after the sentencing.

Bob Phillips, Fennell’s defense attorney, said his client chose not to say anything for the duration of the near year-long case because of a pending federal lawsuit against Fennell and the Georgetown Police Department.

“My client made some horrible and inexcusable mistakes,” Phillips said during closing arguments, though he chose not to expand on what those mistakes were.

"Jimmy Fennell Pleads Guilty to Kidnapping, Sexual Misconduct," is Jordan Smith's report in the Austin Chronicle.

Fennell was accused of sexually assaulting a woman involved in an October 2007 domestic disturbance call that he handled. Prior to his legal trouble, Fennell was best known as the fiancé of Stacey Stites, who was murdered in 1996. Rodney Reed was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death but has maintained his innocence. Reed says he was having an affair with Stites. Fennell found out about the affair, Reed's supporters claim, making Fennell a far more likely suspect than Reed.

Fennell's recent legal problems bolster Reed's argument of innocence, says Reed's attorney Bryce Benjet. "Jimmy Fennell has now twice confessed to committing this crime of sexual violence," said Benjet. "Mr. Fennell's conviction for this crime is consistent with his long history of violence and the ample evidence that made him a suspect in the murder of Stacey Stites over a decade ago. ... Mr. Fennell's recent confessions are certainly relevant in demonstrating Mr. Reed's innocence."

Earlier coverage begins here.

Civil Suit Filed Against Former Officer Involved in Reed Case

"Woman sues police, Fennell over sex assault," is Isadora Vail's report in today's Austin American-Statesman.

A woman who accused former Georgetown police Sgt. Jimmy Lewis Fennell Jr. of kidnapping and sexually assaulting her last year is suing him and the Police Department in federal court, accusing them of violating her civil rights.

In the suit, the woman claims that last October, Fennell responded to a domestic disturbance call at her apartment and then forced her to leave with him, dance for him and have sex with him before he returned her to her home. She called 911 after he departed and reported that she'd been raped by an officer named Fennell, according to the suit, but she said she was "shocked and terrified at seeing Fennell as one of the responding officers."

Fennell has since pleaded guilty to two felony charges of kidnapping and improper sexual activity with a person in custody and will be sentenced today in state District Judge Burt Carnes' court. He could face a maximum of 12 years behind bars.

The lawsuit claims that Fennell and several other officers tried to get her to recant her story and said she would not be arrested if she did. She unsuccessfully asked for medical attention and a rape kit test, according to the suit.

Instead of receiving help, the lawsuit states, she was arrested on a public intoxication charge. Jail records don't show that she was charged, and a search of Texas criminal records also revealed no such charges against her.

After sitting in jail for hours, she was seen by a nurse examiner, who collected physical evidence that might validate her claims, the suit says. She also picked Fennell out of a photo lineup, according to the lawsuit.

The American-Statesman is not publishing her name because she was the victim of a sex crime.

And:

The lawsuit contends that the Georgetown Police Department could have prevented the incident if it had researched Fennell's background.

"Prior to Fennell kidnapping and raping plaintiff, there was a disturbing pattern known to Fennell's superiors regarding Fennell's sexually deviant behavior," the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit, which seeks a jury trial, claims that the department knew of "Fennell's deception of law enforcement officers" in the his former fiancée's murder case, prior lawsuits against him for abuse of police authority and excessive force, a previous incident in which he offered an exotic dancer to trade a lap dance for a traffic ticket, and a personal Web site that "focused on sexually explicit and violent images of women."

In 1996, Fennell was a suspect in the slaying of his fiancée, Stacey Stites, in Bastrop County while he was a Giddings police officer. Despite failing two polygraph tests, the lawsuit says, he was ruled out as a suspect. A Bastrop man, Rodney Reed, is on death row for the crime.

More on the case is in the Rodney Reed index.

Rodney Reed

Also in today's Austin American-Statesman, "Attorney files to submit more evidence in death row case."

The attorney for death row inmate Rodney Reed filed a motion Wednesday asking an appeals court for a new trial because of what he cited as new evidence against a former suspect in the murder of Stacey Stites.

Bryce Benjet, Reed's attorney, said the new evidence about Jimmy Fennell Jr., Stites' fiancé at the time, includes what Benjet said was Fennell's personal Web site that contains sexual content and violent images.

Reed is on death row for the 1996 strangling of 19-year-old Stites in Bastrop County, but Reed's attorney says Fennell, then a Giddings police officer, should have been investigated more thoroughly as a suspect.

Benjet said other recent evidence includes a woman's allegations that Fennell acted improperly as a Georgetown police officer when he pulled her over and Fennell's admitting in May to kidnapping and having sex with a woman in custody in October.

Fennell resigned from the department in January and is awaiting trial in the kidnapping incident.  

"I think it confirms everything about Jimmy Fennell's character that we've said from the beginning," Benjet said. "If the jury knew everything that we know now, I'm confident that a jury would never have convicted Reed."

Earlier coverage is here.

Judge Denies Plea Agreement for Fennell

That's the headline in today's Austin American-Statesman concerning a former law enforcement officer who is implicated in the Rodney Reed case.  LINK

District Judge Burt Carnes on Tuesday denied a plea agreement that included two years in prison and 10 years of probation for former Georgetown police Sgt. Jimmy Fennell, who is accused of sexually assaulting a woman while he was on duty. The judge set the case for trial Sept. 8. 

"I am going to reject this plea deal and set it for a jury trial," Carnes said to an emotionless Fennell. Carnes did not elaborate, nor did he return phone calls Tuesday evening.

Under the deal reached last month between prosecutors and Fennell's attorney, Fennell pleaded guilty to felony charges of kidnapping and sexual misconduct in connection with an Oct. 26 incident in which he was accused of raping an intoxicated woman while on duty. If Carnes had accepted the agreement, Fennell would have received a two-year prison sentence, 10 years probation and a $5,000 fine.

Fennell is charged with aggravated sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping, improper sexual activity with a person in custody and official oppression — all of which could exceed two 99-year terms if he is convicted by a jury.

And:

During Fennell's 13-year law enforcement career in Bastrop County, Giddings and Georgetown, he has been accused of beating up suspects, stalking and making false arrests, according to claims made in lawsuits, complaints to a former Lee County official and claims of a former girlfriend.

Before last fall's sexual assault allegations, Fennell had not been charged with a crime.  

He was a suspect in the 1996 slaying of his fiancée, 19-year-old Stacey Stites. The case was out of Bastrop County when Fennell was a Giddings police officer, but investigators later ruled him out as a suspect.

The man convicted of Stites' murder is Rodney Reed, who was sentenced to death in 1998. Reed's case was heard by an appeals court in March for the third time since his conviction, but no rulings have been issued by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Reed's attorney, Bryce Benjet, said a trial for Fennell will help him argue that Fennell was capable of killing Stites.  

"A trial is inevitably going to bring more information about Jimmy Fennell's character and we will definitely look into any piece of information that will be relevant to Rodney's case," he said.

Earlier coverage is in the Rodney Reed index.

Plea Raises Issues in Rodney Reed Case

A former law enforcement officer's plea agreement has raised new questions in the controversial case of Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed.  Isadora Vail reports, "Former Georgetown officer pleads guilty in assault case," in today's Austin American-Statesman.

Former Georgetown police Sgt. Jimmy Lewis Fennell Jr. pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of kidnapping and one count of improper sexual activity with a person in custody in connection with an Oct. 26 incident in which he was accused of raping an intoxicated woman while on duty.

Under the plea deal, prosecutors and Fennell's attorney, Bob Phillips, asked for two years in state jail for the charge of improper sexual activity with a person in custody, and 10 years of probation for the kidnapping charge. Fennell would surrender his peace officer's license but would not have to register as a sex offender under the deal.

Fennell originally was charged with aggravated sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping, improper sexual activity with a person in custody and official oppression — all of which could have exceeded two 99-year terms if convicted by a jury.

Sentencing for Fennell, 35, was set for June 24 in District Judge Burt Carnes' court. The judge can accept the deal or change it. If Carnes changes the deal and Fennell doesn't agree, the case could go to trial.

Fennell also was a suspect in the 1996 strangling of his fiancée, 19-year-old Stacey Stites, in Bastrop County until investigators ruled him out. At the time, he was a Giddings police officer.

Stites' slaying led to the 1998 conviction of Rodney Reed, who is on death row and whose case was heard by an appeals court in March for the third time. No opinions or rulings have been issued.

Reed's attorney Bryce Benjet said Fennell's plea agreement Tuesday is relevant to his client's appeal.  

Reed's lawyers have said that previous allegations of misconduct by Fennell will help them argue that he was capable of killing Stites.

"This confirms everything we have been saying, and now Jimmy Fennell has acknowledged his abuse as a police officer," Benjet said. He said he plans on using Fennell's guilty plea for another appeal.

Earlier coverage of Rodney Reed's case is here.

The Rodney Reed Case

Emily Ramshaw revisits the Rodney Reed case in today's Dallas Morning News, "Central Texas man on death row maintains innocence as many believe his trial was unfair."

Jurors sentenced Rodney Reed to death after DNA evidence showed he'd had sex with 19-year-old Stacy Stites, found strangled in the brush off a remote country road.

But a decade since Mr. Reed, who is black, first proclaimed his innocence, the case that rocked the small Central Texas town of Bastrop remains on appeal – amplified by an online movement to free Mr. Reed and continued scrutiny of Texas' use of the death penalty in racially charged cases.

While Mr. Reed sits on death row, his attorneys are standing by his theory: that he was having a secret, interracial affair with Ms. Stites and that Ms. Stites' police officer fiancé found out and killed her.

And they're arguing that Mr. Reed's trial was botched from the get-go – from sloppy police work and lack of legal counsel to a dearth of evidence linking Mr. Reed to the murder. No blacks were chosen for Mr. Reed's jury.

And:

Ryan Polomski, a filmmaker whose graduate thesis on the Reed case evolved into an award-winning documentary, said there are enough questions about the trial to give pause.

"Am I 100 percent sure Reed didn't do it? No," he said "But I am 100 percent sure he didn't get a fair trial."

Now, two additional witnesses have also joined the defense roster. One woman has testified she saw Ms. Stites and Mr. Fennell arguing outside a convenience store hours after Mr. Reed was alleged to have killed her. Another, a Dallas-area police officer, was in a police academy class with Mr. Fennell and said she heard him say he would strangle his girlfriend with a belt if he ever found she had cheated on him.

Earlier coverage is here.  You can also view a trailer of the Polomski documentary at the Morning News link.

Additional News Coverage of Rodney Reed Hearing

Molly Bloom reports, "Rodney Reed's lawyers tell appeals court that he deserves a new trial," in the Austin American-Statesman.

If a Bastrop County jury had heard all of the evidence in the 1998 trial of Rodney Reed, the jurors would never have convicted him of raping and killing 19-year-old Stacey Stites and given him the death penalty, Reed's lawyers told the state's highest criminal court Wednesday morning. 

Reed is awaiting execution for killing Stites, whose body was found on the side of a Bastrop road in 1996. Reed has said the two were having a secret affair even though Stites was engaged to former Giddings police officer Jimmy Fennell Jr. when she was abducted, raped and strangled.

"This court can do what it needs to do to correct a miscarriage of justice," Morris Overstreet, one of Reed's appeal lawyers and a former state appeals court judge, told the nine-member Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Neither side introduced new evidence Wednesday. Instead, the defense argued that evidence discovered after Reed's trial demonstrates his innocence and compels the court to grant him a new trial.

The state and Stites' sister say that the right man is behind bars.  

Reed's lawyers, Overstreet and Bryce Benjet, argued Wednesday that he deserves a new trial. They said prosecutors didn't tell Reed's lawyers about evidence in the case, including the state's DNA analysis results of beer cans found near Stites' body that the contend could link fellow Giddings police officer David Hall, a friend of Fennell's, to the crime scene.

They also said prosecutors didn't tell Reed's defense lawyers about a woman who said she saw Stites and Fennell together the morning of her death and a police academy classmate of Fennell's who said she heard Fennell say that he would strangle his girlfriend with a belt if he found out that she cheated on him.

The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Reed's conviction in 2000 and rejected his request for a new hearing in 2002.  

And:

Overstreet joined Reed's defense in 2005, when the Texas Defender Service, which represents death row inmates, asked him to volunteer on the Reed case, before a hearing on the new evidence in a Bastrop County district court.

"I was convinced that Rodney Reed was innocent of this, and so I agreed to help," said Overstreet, who was at the time a law professor at Texas Southern University.

Reed, who is African American, has said that racism played a role in what he says was a rush to convict him of killing Stites, who was white.

AP's Michael Graczyk writes, "Condemned inmate's lawyers say new evidence should mean new trial," via the San Antonio Express-News.

With about a dozen relatives and supporters of condemned inmate Rodney Reed crowded into a packed courtroom, the convicted killer's lawyers asked the state's highest criminal court Wednesday to grant him a new trial for the rape-slaying of a Central Texas woman 12 years ago.

"Mr. Reed has proclaimed his innocence since Day 1," Morris Overstreet, one of his lawyers, told the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, where he served a term as a judge in the 1990s. "Even though he now stands convicted, he maintains he is innocent of this offense."

Reed, who is black, is awaiting execution for the abduction, rape and strangling of a 19-year-old white woman, Stacey Stites, in Bastrop County, about 30 miles southeast of Austin. Reed has contended the two were having a secret affair, even though Stites was engaged to soon marry a police officer when she was killed.

Stites' sister said after the nearly hourlong hearing that the right man was in prison.

And:

Overstreet said there's no timetable for a decision, which could come anywhere from two to six months from now. Although each side was allowed 20 minutes to present its arguments, the judges — seven members of the nine-judge court were present — extended the time considerably as they peppered attorneys with questions about the legal issues in the case.

"The most they can do is to order a new trial," Overstreet said. "Our position is if the jury at the time of the trial had an opportunity to view all of the evidence we know now exists, they would have made a different decision."

In addition to the coverage linked in this post yesterday, News 8 Austin's Catie Beck filed a slightly different version of the story later in the day, here, with links to some of the pleadings.

Streaming video reports are also available from Fox 7 (KTBC-TV), KEYE-TV, KVUE-TV, and KXAN-TV

The Rodney Reed index is here.

An Update on Rodney Reed

Every seat in the Court of Criminal Appeals' courtroom was filled today. and a line of his supporters stood outside the door.  All the local television stations were on the scene, as well as other print and broadcast journalists.

KUT-FM's Nathan Bernier has filed, "Death Row Inmate Seeks Retrial," which includes a photograph of the crowd.

News 8 Austin's Catie Beck covered the hearing and reports, "Rodney Reed makes renewed plea for new trial."  The link contains the streaming video.  Here's the beginning of her report:

It was a significant day for Reed and his family because his defense lawyers made their case for new trial before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. It was a long-awaited day and they realize that this might be their final chance to fight for Reed's innocence. They have been fighting an uphill appeal battle for the past 10 years and have not been successful in winning a retrial.

Reed's defense lawyers spent most of their case addressing what they call the "key flaws" made by the prosecution in Reed's initial trial. His lawyers claimed that state prosecutors withheld two key witnesses as well as an integral piece of evidence that was found at the crime scene.

And:

It was a fast-paced argument, one that Reed’s lawyer feels comfortable with.

“I think that it went very, very well,” attorney Morris Overstreet said. “I think the questions by the court were timely, they were pointed. I think we were very prepared for this case. I feel confident about the outcome in this case.”

Overstreet is a former member of the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Earlier coverage is here.

Rodney Reed Hearing at Court of Criminal Appeals

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.

New Spotlight on Rodney Reed Case

The Rodney Reed case from Bastrop has long been held up as a possible innocent on Texas death row.  The case is getting new attention because a Georgetown police officer implicated in the Reed case has been indicted in an unrelated matter.  On Saturday, Isadora Vail of the Austin American-Statesman reported, "Georgetown officer accused of raping intoxicated woman."

After Georgetown police Sgt. Jimmy Lewis Fennell Jr. detained a highly intoxicated woman during a domestic disturbance call, he drove her to what she thought was a park, asked her to dance for him and then raped her as she leaned against his police cruiser, according to court records.

Fennell, who was arrested this week and charged with the Oct. 26 assault, reportedly ignored her pleas to stop, according to a search warrant affidavit released Friday.

His arrest has brought renewed attention to the 1996 murder of his fiancée, in which investigators dismissed Fennell as a suspect. Rodney Reed was convicted of her murder and sent to death row.

And:

Fennell has been with the Georgetown department about nine years. In 1996, he was a Giddings police officer, engaged to 19-year-old Stacey Stites; she was strangled and found on the side of a dirt road north of Bastrop on April 23.

Rodney Reed was sentenced to death in 1998 for killing Stites and is waiting for a ruling on an appeal. His defense attorneys have long held up Fennell as a possible suspect in the killing..

Reed's attorney, Bryce Benjet, said this week that the charges against Fennell, if true, could have a significant impact on Reed's appeal for a new trial.

The Statesman had filed a Freedom of Information request to obtain information on the indictment.

Jim Harrington, Executive Director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, has released a statement:

"It has always been the defense position of Rodney Reed that Fennell actually killed the victim, Stacey Stites, who was Fennell's girl friend at the time, because Reed was having an affair with her. This is especially salient in view of the earlier post-trial testimony, after Reed's conviction, by Mary Blackwell that Fennell had bragged to a classmate in the police academy that he would strangle his girlfriend, using a belt to prevent fingerprints, if he learned she was cheating on him.

"In light of these rather stunning developments that dramatically support Reed's claims of Fennell's violent character, the courts should reverse Reed's conviction and set a new trial."

TCRP has been active in Reed's case. 

Earlier coverage is here, here, and here.  Jordan Smith of our independent alt-weekly Austin Chronicle has reported extensively on the case, including "Who Killed Stacy Stites," in May 2002; "Hidden Evidence?," in March 2006, and; "Reed Appeal Shot Down," in June 2006.