Rodney Reed’s decades-long fight to prove his innocence has met a screeching halt once again. According to The Associated Press, a Texas appeals court denied his request for retrial based on the claims that there is evidence proving he is not guilty.
In April, Reed was backed by the US Supreme Court ruling last year that stated he should have a chance to push for the testing of crime-scene evidence he claims could prove his innocence. Following that, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans authorized for more legal briefs to be filed in Reed’s case regarding DNA testing of the evidence.
However, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals delivered a 129-page ruling stating Reed “failed to make an affirmative and persuasive” claim that he was innocent and also “failed to show the State withheld material defense-favorable evidence” at the time of Reed’s trial.
“Even if all of Reed’s post-trial evidence is taken into account, Reed still has not demonstrated that he is more likely than not innocent of Stacey’s murder,” wrote Judge Jesse McClure.
Read a recap of Reed’s accusations from AP News:
“Reed was condemned for the 1996 killing of 19-year-old Stacey Stites. Prosecutors say he raped and strangled Stites as she made her way to work at a supermarket in Bastrop, a rural community about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Austin.
“Reed, 55, has long maintained that Stites’ fiance, former police officer Jimmy Fennell, was the real killer. Reed says Fennell was angry because Stites, who was white, was having an affair with Reed, who is Black. Fennell, who served time for sexual assault and was released from prison in 2018, has denied killing Stites. Reed’s attorneys have also accused prosecutors of suppressing evidence.”
Nearly every argument Reed has brought to fight his innocence claim has been rejected, from witnesses to physical evidence. Though, his attorney from the Innocence Project, Jane Pucher, said the fight isn’t over.
“Mr. Reed’s conviction and death sentence violates the most central tenets of our Constitution and cannot stand. We will continue to fight for Mr. Reed’s freedom and bring him home to his family,” Pucher said in a statement per AP.