Saturday, November 16,
2019
Rodney Reed
Lawyers 'Relieved and Thankful' After Stay of Execution Granted by Texas Court
"Reed's execution should not just be delayed, but
canceled," said Bernie Sanders. "Real criminal justice reform must
include joining every other major democracy in eliminating the death
penalty."
commondreams.org
Rodney
Reed with his brother Rodrick, nephew Rodrick Jr., and mother Sandra Reed at
the Allan B. Polunsky Unit, West Livingston, Texas in 2019. (Photo: Courtesy of
the Reed Justice Initiative)
Death
penalty opponents and human rights defenders applauded on Friday night after
the highest court in Texas issued an indefinite stay of execution for Rodney
Reed.
According to
the Austin Statesman:
The order by the Court of Criminal Appeals came hours after the
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously to recommend that Gov.
Greg Abbott delay, for 120 days, Wednesday's scheduled execution.
The board declined to support Reed's request to commute his
death sentence to a life term in prison.
Abbott could have accepted or rejected the seven-member board’s
recommendation, but Friday's stay of execution took the matter out of his
hands.
Citing
Reed's innocence in the 1996 murder for which he was convicted, human rights
groups have been demanding Reed be taken off death row for years. That call has
become increasingly urgent as his scheduled execution date approach.
Thank
you to all who called, tweeted, and spoke out against the execution of an
innocent person. Today, we rejoice. Tomorrow, we keep working to prove #RodneyReed's innocence. Stay involved. https://bit.ly/37bZ5V6
"We
are extremely relieved and thankful that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
(CCA) has issued a stay of execution for our client Rodney Reed," said the
Innonence Project, which has been working on Reed's appeal, in a statement.
"The CCA has ordered the claims of Brady violations, false testimony and
actual innocence in Mr. Reed's case back to the trial court. This opportunity
will allow for proper consideration of the powerful and mounting new evidence
of Mr. Reed's innocence."
The
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has blocked the execution of #RodneyReed. The court
recognized Reed's motion to stay the execution and has sent the case back to a
lower court to consider his claims that the state presented false testimony and
that he is innocent.
As
the Statesman reports:
Reed's lawyers say analyses from forensic experts determined
that Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old whose body was discovered along a rural road
in Bastrop County in 1996, had been killed hours before she could have
encountered Reed — but at a time when she was with fiancé Jimmy Fennell in the
apartment they shared in Giddings. Other witnesses have submitted sworn
statements supporting Reed's claim that he and Stites were having an affair,
explaining the presence of his semen in her body, and portraying Fennell as a
racist who expressed anger that Stites was sleeping with a black man and,
according to one affidavit, admitted to killing her. Reed is African American.
Fennell, like Stites, is white.
Friday's order from the Court of Criminal Appeals will allow
Reed to present that evidence and advance arguments that Reed was convicted
based on false testimony from prosecution medical experts who told jurors that
the condition of Reed’s sperm, with tails intact, meant she was raped and
strangled minutes apart, and that only Reed could have committed the murder.
2020
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was among those who applauded
the decision, but added that the courts should go even further and capital
punishment be abolished entirely.
This
decision by the parole board is critically important. Rodney Reed's execution
should not just be delayed, but canceled.
Real criminal justice reform must include joining every other major democracy in eliminating the death penalty. https://twitter.com/HuffPost/status/1195469691969589249 …
Real criminal justice reform must include joining every other major democracy in eliminating the death penalty. https://twitter.com/HuffPost/status/1195469691969589249 …
Rep.
Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) expressed a similar sentiment:
The
#trauma, the pain, &
the injustice that #RodneyReed
has experienced at the hands of the criminal legal system is inhumane. While
this is a victory for Rodney & his family, #justice delayed is
justice denied.
The death penalty has no place is a just society. #FreeRodney https://twitter.com/kira_lerner/status/1195464687321845761 …
The death penalty has no place is a just society. #FreeRodney https://twitter.com/kira_lerner/status/1195464687321845761 …
"An
indefinite stay of execution for Rodney Reed is just and warranted," declared the
ACLU in a tweet following the news. "When the state kills someone who may
be innocent in the name of justice, the true perversion of the death penalty
becomes clear."
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Donations can be sent
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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