WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from longtime Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed, who has sought DNA testing of evidence he says could clear him of the 1996 killing of 19-year-old Stacey Stites.
The court left in place a federal appeals court ruling from New Orleans, rejecting Reed’s request for the second time in less than three years. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
Reed was sentenced to death for Stites’ murder, with prosecutors asserting he also raped her. Reed contends the relationship with Stites was consensual and maintains that her fiancé, former police officer Jimmy Fennell, was the actual killer. Fennell has denied the allegation and previously served time for sexual assault, being released in 2018.
The key evidence Reed wants tested is a webbed belt used to strangle Stites. His attorneys argue that the killer’s sweat and skin cells should be present on the belt, potentially yielding DNA to identify the real perpetrator. State and lower federal courts have so far supported prosecutors’ refusal to allow testing, despite Reed’s offer to fund it himself.
Justice Sotomayor called it “inexplicable” that the state would not permit testing, writing that it could exonerate Reed and identify the true killer. She noted that with the Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene, “the State will likely execute Reed without the world ever knowing whether Reed’s or Fennell’s DNA is on the murder weapon.”
Texas courts cited a state law excluding contaminated evidence from DNA testing, though Reed’s lawyers countered that contaminated evidence is commonly used in prosecutions and that the state, not Reed, was responsible for the handling of the belt.
Reed’s case previously returned to lower courts in 2023 after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on his constitutional challenge to the state’s DNA testing law, but deadlines and procedural issues blocked further testing.
His efforts have drawn support from celebrities including Beyoncé, Kim Kardashian, and Oprah Winfrey.
