AUSTIN, Texas — Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed is fighting to get additional DNA testing that his team believes will exonerate him.
Reed was sentenced to death in 1998 for raping and killing 19-year-old Stacey Stites in Bastrop County. On Monday morning, that fight landed in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Reed’s attorney told the court DNA testing on the murder weapon could possibly reveal the true killer. That murder weapon, Stites’ belt used to strangle her, was not DNA tested. The technology was not available at the time.
Reed asked for DNA testing post-conviction, but those requests were denied. His team claims the state’s DNA testing regime is unconstitutional.
But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said evidence was mishandled and therefore too contaminated for DNA testing, that the chain of custody of the evidence raised serious doubts about the reliability of future testing.
Reed’s team has said they believe Stites’ fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, is the real killer.
“If DNA testing shows a high concentration of someone else’s DNA and the webbing of the belt like Jimmy Fennell’s, it would provide powerful evidence that Reed didn’t commit the crime,” said Parker Rider-Longmaid, attorney for Reed.
Investigators looked into Fennell as a suspect in the late ‘90s but ruled him out.
The attorney representing the state argued that the mishandling of the evidence was not done in bad faith. At the time, routine handling of evidence was done without wearing gloves.
“It was normal practice to handle that evidence ungloved because this was prior to touch DNA being in existence,” said Gwendolyn Suzanne Vindell, attorney for the state of Texas. “And my opposing counsel points out in his briefs that there is now a statute in Texas that requires preservation. That statute didn’t exist at the time.”
It is expected to take months before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals makes a decision.
Monday’s hearing is in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that Reed’s DNA request can be considered because the statute of limitations had not run out.