Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejects Rodney Reed's claim that evidence was suppressed

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday rejected Rodney Reed's claim that prosecutors at his 1998 trial illegally suppressed evidence that could have exonerated him in the murder of Stacey Stites.

The court said the testimony of new witnesses in a 2021 evidentiary hearing would not have changed the outcome of Reed's 1998 trial. It also said that prosecutors' cross-examination of witnesses during the trial did not give the jury a false impression and that there had been no new advances in science to disprove the testimony of experts in the trial.

Reed, a death row inmate, was convicted of capital murder in the strangulation death of Stacey Stites and received the death penalty. Stites' body was found by the side of a rural road in Bastrop County on April 23, 1996, with Reed's sperm inside her.

Reed's lawyers said on Wednesday that they plan to pursue "all avenues available."

“For 23 years, Texas illegally hid evidence that could have exonerated Rodney Reed," said Jane Pucher, one of Reed's attorneys. "He is an innocent man. 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 man to his death."

Stites' sister, Debra Oliver, said in a statement on Wednesday that she was grateful for the decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. "Rodney Reed is guilty of the rape and murder of my sister Stacey Stites and this has been provne beyond a reasonable doubt," she said. "Reed's defense is only believable is you suspend reality and ignore the overwhelming evidence that he is a serial rapist with no relationship to my sister."

The ruling does not end Reed's bid for freedom, as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April that his request for further DNA testing in the Stites murder case could be considered.

More: Supreme Court lets Rodney Reed pursue DNA lawsuit in Stacey Stites murder case

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals made its ruling Wednesday after a state district judge recommended in 2021 that Reed's conviction be upheld. The recommendation was made after an evidentiary hearing that year in which Reed's lawyers had argued that new evidence in the case warranted a new trial.

Pucher said Wednesday that prosecutors at Reed’s 1998 trial "illegally concealed statements from Stacey Stites’ co-workers showing that Mr. Reed and Ms. Stites knew each other and were romantically involved."

"The suppressed evidence was crucial because it demonstrated that the key factual theory of the State’s capital murder case against Mr. Reed — that he had to have kidnapped Ms. Stites because the two were strangers — was patently false."

The Court of Criminal Appeals said in its ruling that the testimony of one of the witnesses at the 2021 evidentiary hearing was "immaterial." Suzan Hugen, a former Bastrop H-E-B employee, had testified in 2021 that Stites had introduced Reed to her as "my very good friend, Rodney," the ruling said. Hugen also said Stites was "giggly and flirty" around Reed.

More: Judge recommends Rodney Reed conviction should stand; appeals court to make later decision

But defense witnesses in Reed's 1998 trial already had talked about the possibility that Stites and Reed knew each other, the ruling said. It said one defense witness in Reed's 1998 trial, Julia Estes, testified that she had seen Stites socializing with Reed inside the H-E-B. Another witness, Iris Lindley, had said that a woman who looked like Stites had come to Reed's house looking for him.

Hugen's testimony that Stites was "flirty" around Reed did not prove she was having an affair with Reed, the ruling said.

"Hugen also testified that she saw hand-shaped bruises on Stacey’s wrists, the implication evidently being that Stacey’s fiancé Jimmy Fennell was abusing her,' the ruling said. An autopsy did not show any bruises on Stites' wrists, the appeals court said.

"Further, hand-shaped bruises would not have alleviated the logistical implausibility of Fennell murdering Stacey, dumping her body in Bastrop, and getting back to Giddings — without the use of his truck — in time for Stacey’s mother Carol to rouse him from his apartment," the ruling said.

"Hugen’s information would not have cast the trial in a different light and does not undermine our confidence in the jury’s verdict," the ruling said. Reed denied knowing Stites when police questioned him, it also said.

Jimmy Fennell, then a Giddings police officer, has denied that he killed Stites.

The appeals court ruling Wednesday said that in Reed's claim that the state gave the jury a false or misleading impression when it cross-examined defense witnesses Estes and Lindley, Reed has “point(ed) to no specific testimony from any witness that actually left the jury with a false impression.”

Reed also claimed that during his 1998 trial that the state’s experts’ opinions regarding time of death, anal penetration, bruise coloration, and sperm longevity had “no basis in the accepted scientific literature," the ruling said. The appeals court disagreed.

"Reed points to no post-trial (let alone post-November 2019) advancements in any of these areas," the court said.

Reed has failed to get his conviction overturned in multiple attempts in federal and state courts, but his appeals have stayed his execution twice.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rules no new trial for Rodney Reed