December 15, 2019
At the last possible moment an apellate court saves your life, rules that--because you may be actually innocent--you should not die, yet, and your heart leaps with hope in humankind.
"Praise Jesus," you say to Kim Kardashian, who--among many far less publicity-minded others--championed your freedom.
No one is laughing out loud.
Not the cops who 'arrested' you. Not the forensic scientists who 'matched' your DNA with the crime scene. Not the District Attorney who 'prosecuted' you. Not the jury that 'convicted' you.
Did I mention your skin is black and you live in America?
That you were convicted of raping and murdering a young white woman?
In a tiny rural Texas town?
By an all-white jury?
Twenty-three years ago?
Last month, the State of Texas's Court of Appeals stayed the execution of human being Rodney Reed only five days before Reed's scheduled execution by lethal injection.
Once again, Innocence Project saves the life of a death-row inmate. On the other hand, Reed may be innocent but he is not yet free.
Reed was convicted of the rape and murder of Stacey Stited on April 22, 1996, in Bastrop, Texas. The only forensic evidence was DNA evidence of his semen in her vagina. Incredibly, and despite previous appeals, the belt used as a ligature to strangle the victim was never DNA tested. The time of death was misrepresented in trial testimony, correction of which would have thrown into question the alibi of the victim's then-fiancé Jimmy Fennell, a former local police officer and the investigators' original suspect in Stites's rape and murder.
Turns out, Stites and Reed were involved in a consensual sexual relationship, and fiancé Fennell had found out about it.
Fennell later served a 10-year sentence in Texas for the on-duty rape of another woman. While serving that sentence, on October 29, 2019, Arthur Snow, Fennell’s prisonmate and one-time Aryan Brother disclosed that Fennell had confessed to murdering Stites.
Snow quoted Fennell as having said “I had to kill my n*****-loving fiancée."
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