Rodney Reed
Rodney Rodell Reed is an American death row inmate who was convicted on May 18, 1998 by a Bastrop County, Texas District Court jury for the April 23, 1996 abduction, rape, and murder of Stacey Stites, a 19 year old resident of Giddings, Texas.
Although Reed initially denied knowing Stites, after his DNA matched semen inside Stites's dead body, Reed claimed that he was having a clandestine affair with Stites and that they had consensual sex the day before her death. During the penalty phase of the trial, the state argued for capital punishment on the basis of Reed's criminal history, in which he was a suspect in attacks on five women and a 12 year old girl. Reed was sentenced to death on May 28, 1998 and is incarcerated at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit death row facility in Polk County, Texas.
His conviction and death sentence remain controversial. Reed was scheduled to be executed on November 20, 2019, but doubt over Reed's guilt led to bipartisan support for a stay of his execution from Texas state legislators, as well as numerous celebrities and other public figures. On November 15, 2019, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously recommended that Texas Governor Greg Abbott grant Reed a 120-day reprieve. Later that day, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals indefinitely stayed Reed's execution.
Early life
Reed was born in Ventura County, California to Walter and Sandra Reed. His father was a native of Bastrop, Texas and an Air Force veteran while his mother was a nurse. Reed was raised with his six brothers in Texas and attended Hirschi High School in Wichita Falls, Texas. He played on the school's football team and was a state Golden Gloves champion boxer.Murder of Stacey Stites
Stacey Stites, a 19 year old resident of Giddings, Texas, was found dead on April 23, 1996. Police had received a call at 3:11 PM that her unidentified body had been discovered in some bushes near a dirt road behind Bastrop High School in Bastrop, Texas. A pickup truck that belonged to Stites' fiancé that she regularly drove to work had been found earlier, parked at the school nearby. The authorities determined that Stites had been beaten, sodomized, and raped before being strangled to death with her own belt some time between 3:00 and 5:00 AM. When discovered in the bushes, Stites was wearing a black bra and jeans. Part of the belt that had been used to kill her was found near her body, and the other part of the belt was found near the truck. Her body had been partially burned, and her shirt was found nearby.Stites had lived in Giddings with her fiancé, a local police officer, whom she was scheduled to marry in three weeks. Her fiancé said he last saw her around 3:00 AM after the couple showered together and she left for work. Bastrop High School was en route from their home in Giddings on the way to her workplace in the produce section at the H-E-B grocery store in Bastrop. After Stites did not arrive for her 3:30 AM shift, the store called her mother, who then called the police.
H-E-B offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the capture of her killer, but it went unclaimed. On July 12, 1996, an anonymous woman called the authorities once and said she believed that her son may have been with Stites in the hours before she was killed, but the call could not be traced.
Stites was buried in her hometown of Corpus Christi on 26 April 1996. Her brother never recovered from her death and committed suicide in 1997.
Arrest and trial
The authorities began to suspect Reed had been involved in the Stites murder based on similarities in the case to an attack on another woman six months later on November 9, 1996. Linda Schlueter, age 19, had agreed to give a ride to a man she met after stopping at a drive-up payphone at a now-closed Long's Star Mart. When she went to drop him off, he attacked her and said he would kill her for resisting him, but then fled the scene with her vehicle after seeing car lights approaching. Reed was detained by police based on Schlueter's description, and she subsequently picked him out of a photo line-up. The police department had been familiar with him because of prior arrests.Schlueter's vehicle was found close to where Stites's pickup truck had been abandoned at Bastrop High School. DNA extracted from three sperm found in Stites' vagina and saliva found on her chest matched to Reed. Local law enforcement already had Reed's DNA on file from a investigation into an alleged rape of a woman with intellectual disabilities in May 1995. Reed was officially charged with the murder of Stacey Stites on April 4, 1997 and held without bond. At the time, he was already in jail on an unrelated charge. He was indicted and "charged with two counts of capital murder, one for murder in the course of aggravated sexual assault and one for murder in the course of kidnapping." His arraignment was scheduled for 29 May 1997, and jury selection began in March 1998. The jury was described as "mostly white", with no African-Americans among the 12 jurors or two alternates. The case against Reed rested heavily upon the DNA evidence, with no additional physical evidence or eyewitness testimony.
Upon his initial questioning by police and before he learned about the DNA evidence, Reed denied knowing Stites outside of what he had heard in news reports. At trial, Reed's defense attorneys, Lydia Clay-Jackson and Calvin Garvey, argued that there had actually been a clandestine sexual relationship between Reed and Stites. Reed said that he initially denied knowing Stites because it would be best for him not to admit to knowing "a dead white girl" and later because "I knew she was seeing a cop, and we're in the South. There's still a lot of racism going on." The prosecutors noted that Reed had previously used a similar defense of a clandestine affair when charged with a different aggravated rape in 1987 which had led to him being acquitted.
According to prosecutor Lisa Tanner, DNA evidence was taken from 15 suspects, including Stites' fiancé and individuals who allegedly confessed to or bragged about the killing. DNA testing eliminated everyone except Reed as the source of the semen. Police investigators could find no one who would attest to a relationship between Reed and Stites, including her mother and sister, and the defense brought forward no witnesses who could testify to the affair. Further, Stites' mother claimed that her daughter and her fiancé "looked happy and in love". The prosecution put forward the DNA evidence and speculated that Reed may have ambushed Stites at a railroad crossing or a stoplight on her way to work the morning of the murder.
Reed was convicted on 18 May 1998 after a jury deliberation of six hours. Stites' family and friends were relieved by the conviction. Reed's family wept, because they were convinced that he was innocent. He was sentenced to death on 28 May 1998 after a deliberation of four hours. During sentencing, prosecutors pushed for the death penalty by arguing that Reed was likely to pose a danger in the future based on a history of similar previous charges. To bolster their case, the prosecution brought forward women Reed allegedly raped: Schlueter, a 12 year old girl, the intellectually disabled woman, and a woman named Vivian Harbottle to testify against him in the penalty phase. The prosecution asserted that DNA found on the 12 year old girl, the disabled woman and Harbottle matched Reed.
Appeals and stays of execution
Reed has unsuccessfully appealed nine times on grounds of ignored witnesses and evidence that may have raised reasonable doubt but was not handed over to defense attorneys because prosecutors claimed that it was irrelevant. Reed's attorneys have subsequently argued that the broken belt used in the murder has never been tested for DNA, and that forensic experts have admitted to making errors in their testimony. His case has since been taken up by the Innocence Project.Reed was scheduled to be executed on January 14, 2015, but the execution was rescheduled to March 5, 2015 based on a request by the state. On February 23, 2015, his execution was stayed to allow the consideration of further evidence. His execution was later rescheduled for November 20, 2019.
In the weeks preceding Reed's November 20, 2019 execution date, celebrities such as Kim Kardashian West, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Meek Mill, Pusha T, Susan Sarandon, Seth Green, and Oprah Winfrey publicly urged Texas Governor Greg Abbott to exonerate Reed or stay his execution. Some, such as Amanda Seales, have rescinded their support for Reed's exoneration after learning more about his history. The case received coverage in major news outlets, and Reed was interviewed on an episode of Dr. Phil, in which host Phil McGraw opined that Reed should not be executed because he had not received a fair trial. By November 14, 2019, a petition to free Reed started by Shaun King had reportedly garnered more than three million signatures.
A bipartisan group of 16 Texas state senators has petitioned Abbott to stay the death penalty on grounds that new, possibly exculpatory evidence had come to light. On November 15, 2019, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously recommended that Texas Governor Greg Abbott grant Reed a 120-day reprieve. Later that day, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals indefinitely stayed Reed's execution, stating that his legal team's claims of suppression of evidence, false testimony, and ineffective counsel satisfied the requirements of habeas corpus.
On February 24, 2020, the Supreme Court announced that it would not be taking up Reed's appeal, citing ongoing litigation in lower courts.