.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Stand with Rodney Reed. Bring him home.
Rodney Reed still sits in prison on death row for a crime he did not commit. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected his request for a new trial, but the Supreme Court has ruled that he can use DNA evidence to prove his innocence. Add your name right now to stand with Rodney Reed.
Mountains of evidence exonerates Rodney Reed. All of that evidence was kept from the all white jury that convicted him. Instead, the evidence implicates the victim’s fiancé – local police officer Jimmy Fennell – who has a history of violence against women, including being convicted for kidnapping and sexual assault soon after Rodney was wrongly sent to prison.
If enough of us speak up now, we can bring Rodney home. Add your name to this pledge in partnership with the Reed Justice Initiative, led by Rodney's immediate family.
SIGN THE PETITION
About the Case
Stacey Stites died in April 1996. Nearly one year later, Bastrop Sheriffs arrested a 29-year-old black man named Rodney Reed. He was charged with capital murder, citing DNA evidence matching Reed’s DNA to a small amount of sperm found inside the body. Prosecutors succesfully argued that this was enough evidence to prove that Reed was responsible for her brutal sexual assault and murder.
Rodney has steadfastly maintained his innocence from Day 1. Absolutely zero evidence exists that Rodney had anything at all to do with this crime. He was in a consensual relationship with Stacey Stites and the only DNA of Rodney’s that was found was from this consensual relationship. The prosecution, citing that DNA persuaded an all-white jury of his guilt; he was convicted and sentenced to die by lethal injection.
The original suspect in the case was Stites’ fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, a brutal police officer with a history of violence against women. After the murder of Stacey Stites, Fennell kidnapped a woman and sexually assaulted her while on duty as a police officer. He was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for this. Despite sworn affidavits from witnesses establishing that Jimmy Fennell threatened to kill Stites before, and that he has subsequently confessed to the crime, and compelling expert testimony establishing Reed’s innocence, all requests to evaluate new evidence have been unsuccessful.
Reasonable Doubt
The DNA evidence cited by the prosecution resulted from a consensual sexual relationship with Stites. Multiple witnesses confirm this, including members of Stites’ family.
The case is on-face implausible. The prosecution claims that Reed was able to break into Stites’ car on foot while she was inside it, and committed a brutal murder and sexual assault without leaving any physical evidence behind.
No DNA evidence links Reed to the scene of the crime or any other element of the murder. Requests to test the murder weapon for DNA have been repeatedly denied. After taking to the Supreme Court, the court ruled in April 2023 that Rodney Reed’s request for DNA testing must be heard.
Stites was most likely murdered by her fiance, Jimmy Fennell, Jr.
Fennell was the original prime suspect in the case. His friend fellow police officer now admits that Fennell gave him completely inconsistent accounts of his whereabouts at the time of the murder. His most recent claim is impossible based on the most recent evidence.
Even though he was the “prime suspect” at the time, police never searched the apartment that Stites and Fennell shared.
Multiple witnesses swear under oath that Fennell knew about Stites’ affair with Reed, threatened to kill her because of it and made it clear at her funeral that he believed “She got what he deserved.”
Fennell was subsequently incarcerated for another violent sexual assault. In his efforts to join the Aryan Brotherhood, he bragged to other prisoners that he murdered his wife for sleeping with a black man, stating “I had to kill my n*****-loving fiancée.”
Fennel has a long history of violence against women, including multiple complaints about his behavior towards women as a police officer.
Evidence Ignored
Three experts that testified during the trial have recanted their testimony, stating that the original time of death is inaccurate, which makes the entire case implausible. Despite their claims that they were wrong at the time, and that the prosecution misinterpreted their testimony in the first place, the State of Texas continues to ignore this evidence.
Renowned forensic pathologists including Michael Baden, M.D., Werner Spitz, M.D., LeRoy Riddick, M.D., and Cyril Wecht, M.D. have all concluded that Reed’s guilt is medically and scientifically impossible.
Reed’s request to have the murder weapon tested in this case have been repeatedly denied.
In the decades since Reed’s conviction, a host of evidence has emerged showing that Reed and Stites did know each other and Fennell was aware of their dalliance, dismantling the state’s theory of the crime. Evidence of Fennell’s propensity for violence has also surfaced; in 2008, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman while on duty and in uniform. He threatened to kill her if she told anyone about it. Meanwhile, the courts — most notably the CCA — have shrugged their shoulders and rebuffed Reed’s efforts to win a new trial.
“For 23 years, Texas illegally hid evidence that could have exonerated Rodney Reed. He is an innocent man,” Jane Pucher, a senior staff attorney with the Innocence Project, said in a statement. “Texans should be outraged that prosecutorial misconduct is going unchecked, and the state is being given a license to cheat — even if it means sending an innocent mandeath.”