Post by SoulTrainOz on Jun 18, 2006 2:56:42 GMT -5
Death row inmate now will take his case to appeals court.
Rodney Reed's death penalty case is back before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals after a Bastrop judge ruled that new evidence introduced by Reed's lawyers would not have changed the outcome of his 1998 trial.
It was another legal setback for Reed, 38, who was convicted of two counts of capital murder for the abduction, rape and slaying of Stacey Stites on April 23, 1996, in Bastrop.
Stites' body was found on the side of a Bastrop County road 18 days before she was to marry Jimmy Fennell Jr., a Giddings police officer. She had been raped and sodomized, then strangled with her own belt, investigators said.
Investigators matched DNA from Stites' body to samples taken from Reed, who claimed during the trial that he and Stites had carried on a secret affair.
The jury rejected that defense and sentenced Reed to death.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction in December 2000, then rejected his request for a new hearing in 2002. 2 years later, federal District Judge Lee Yeakel ordered a hearing on the new evidence in state District Judge Reva Towslee Corbett's court.
In March, Reed's lawyers argued before Corbett that the testimony of 2 witnesses who didn't take the stand in Reed's trial might have exonerated him.
Martha Barnett testified in the hearing that she saw Stites and Fennell together almost two hours after Reed was said by prosecutors to have killed her.
Mary Blackwell testified 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.
Corbett ruled last week that Barnett "failed to provide a satisfactory explanation" about why she didn't report what she claims she saw until a year and 8 months after Stites died. Corbett noted in her ruling that Barnett didn't come forward with her information until shortly after Fennell arrested her for driving while intoxicated in November 1997.
Corbett said in her ruling that Blackwell's credibility as a witness was undermined because her testimony about Fennell's bragging could not be corroborated. The classmate Fennell is said to have bragged to said the conversation never happened.
Blackwell didn't come forward until 1998, after Reed's trial, Corbett's ruling said.
Morris Overstreet, a former Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge who is one of Reed's lawyers, said he will file an objection to Corbett's ruling with the Court of Criminal Appeals.
"We will be asking the Court of Criminal Appeals to look at whether or not the judge gave us a fair hearing," Overstreet said.
If the court sides with Reed's lawyers, it could order another hearing before Corbett or a new trial.
If it sides with Corbett, Reed's lawyers can appeal the case in U.S. District Court.
(source: Austin American-Statesman)
Rodney Reed's death penalty case is back before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals after a Bastrop judge ruled that new evidence introduced by Reed's lawyers would not have changed the outcome of his 1998 trial.
It was another legal setback for Reed, 38, who was convicted of two counts of capital murder for the abduction, rape and slaying of Stacey Stites on April 23, 1996, in Bastrop.
Stites' body was found on the side of a Bastrop County road 18 days before she was to marry Jimmy Fennell Jr., a Giddings police officer. She had been raped and sodomized, then strangled with her own belt, investigators said.
Investigators matched DNA from Stites' body to samples taken from Reed, who claimed during the trial that he and Stites had carried on a secret affair.
The jury rejected that defense and sentenced Reed to death.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction in December 2000, then rejected his request for a new hearing in 2002. 2 years later, federal District Judge Lee Yeakel ordered a hearing on the new evidence in state District Judge Reva Towslee Corbett's court.
In March, Reed's lawyers argued before Corbett that the testimony of 2 witnesses who didn't take the stand in Reed's trial might have exonerated him.
Martha Barnett testified in the hearing that she saw Stites and Fennell together almost two hours after Reed was said by prosecutors to have killed her.
Mary Blackwell testified 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.
Corbett ruled last week that Barnett "failed to provide a satisfactory explanation" about why she didn't report what she claims she saw until a year and 8 months after Stites died. Corbett noted in her ruling that Barnett didn't come forward with her information until shortly after Fennell arrested her for driving while intoxicated in November 1997.
Corbett said in her ruling that Blackwell's credibility as a witness was undermined because her testimony about Fennell's bragging could not be corroborated. The classmate Fennell is said to have bragged to said the conversation never happened.
Blackwell didn't come forward until 1998, after Reed's trial, Corbett's ruling said.
Morris Overstreet, a former Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge who is one of Reed's lawyers, said he will file an objection to Corbett's ruling with the Court of Criminal Appeals.
"We will be asking the Court of Criminal Appeals to look at whether or not the judge gave us a fair hearing," Overstreet said.
If the court sides with Reed's lawyers, it could order another hearing before Corbett or a new trial.
If it sides with Corbett, Reed's lawyers can appeal the case in U.S. District Court.
(source: Austin American-Statesman)