Justices Weigh Fate of Condemned Prisoner With Celebrity Support

Texas wants to execute Rodney Reed next week despite evidence of his innocence, but the U.S. Supreme Court could intervene in the case which has prompted figures like Kim Kardashian and Sen. Ted Cruz to speak out on his behalf.

The justices are to consider at their Nov. 15 private conference whether to grant Reed’s petition, facing his call to tackle an array of issues including the question of whether the Constitution forbids executing an innocent person.

“The evidence supporting Reed’s innocence is uncontradicted and undeniable, and without the Supreme Court’s intervention, I fear the State of Texas may execute an innocent man,” said Bryce Benjet, Reed’s lawyer and senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project. The state didn’t comment. Reed’s execution is scheduled for Nov. 20.

Supporters of Texas death-row inmate Rodney Reed outside the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kimberly Robinson, Bloomberg Law

Reed was convicted of the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites, with whom he says he had an affair. The prosecution pointed to Reed’s semen being recovered from Stites as proof that he killed her. But that’s consistent with the affair, he says, and, what’s more, state forensic witnesses have since abandoned or modified their conclusion that it necessarily links him to the murder.

Plus, Reed says, evidence not only excludes him but implicates Stites’ fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, a prosecution witness who was a police officer then but later served a 10-year sentence for raping a woman when he was on duty.

Fennell had told a colleague that he would strangle Stites with a belt if she cheated, and he knew about the affair, Reed says in his petition. Stites was strangled, apparently with a belt.

Fennell invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination when called to testify in postconviction proceedings.

In their brief opposing Supreme Court review, Texas officials dismiss Reed’s forensic claims as well as the alleged affair.

And while Reed paints Fennell as abusive toward women, the state says the same about Reed, claiming, with reference to multiple allegations, that “the rape and murder of Stites was hardly Reed’s first or last foray against women.”

Kardashian appealed to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last month in a tweet, urging him “to do the right thing.”

And Cruz, a Texas Republican, also tweeted on the case, noting the appeal of a bipartisan political coalition in the state.

Other luminaries also have weighed in on Reed’s behalf.

The case is Reed v. Texas, U.S., 19-411.