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Rodney Reed Execution (1 Viewer)

parasaurolophus

parasaurolophus

Footballguy
Been seeing lots of stars on social media posting about this and curious what people know/think of the case. It is a very interesting case with room for lots of opinions. 

1. Innocent, should be set free immediately

2. Possibly guilty, Shouldn't be executed, but jailed for life

3. Innocent of the murder he was convicted of, but probably* raped a 12 year old girl and a developmentally disabled girl(probably others too) so dont really care what happens to him. 

4. Should have a new trial.

Curious where people land on this and what specifically they know. I am sure there are other opinions too too. 

*I say probably because it isn't absolutely 100%, but the DNA from the 12 year olds rape kit was like only a 1 in 5.5 billion chance that it wasn't him. Other cases had his DNA an almost statistical certainty that it was him. The DNA matches all came about surrounding the case he was convicted for, which I believe is why he was never tried for the 12 yo and some of the others. 

 
I already hold a dim view of people who harm children, especially predators, but to do that to a 12 year old and a developmentally disabled girl, too? The governor should probably not make a call.

 
lod001 said:
Innocent and should be set free immediately. Fennell should be named the #1 suspect.

https://theintercept.com/2019/11/08/rodney-reed-death-row-texas/
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I don't take issue with your opinion since I see a lot of things that can definitely point to Fennell. I just hope you formed your opinion by read other articles since that one is terrible.

That writer should be fired from her job. Today.

 The murder went unsolved for nearly a year before law enforcement officers, apparently acting on a hunch, tested the recovered DNA against 29-year-old Reed.
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That is just a complete journalistic failure. They didn't just act on a hunch. Reed was arrested for the kidnapping and attempted rape of a different 19 year old girl. The situations were incredibly similar. Same time of night, close proximity, same age, victim driven to a secluded area, etc. Thats why they tested the dna against reed's. They didn't even need to get a new sample of DNA to perform the test because Reed's DNA profile was already on file because he had been accused of rape by another girl.

The following is crap too...

There are witnesses — including within Stites’s family — who have come forward to say they were aware of the relationship.
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There were no family members of Stite's that came forward to say they "were aware of the relationship". There was one cousin that came forward in 2016 to say that in 1995 he saw her from a distance leaving a dairy queen with a black man. A man that he saw pictures of later and believed that was the man he saw with her at dairy queen was reed. 

Certainly possible, but that obviously isn't being aware of the relationship. That's like a 21 year old pieced together recollection of a possible sighting. 

A sighting that flies in the face of why they say he denied knowing her and a big part of what his defense was. From an old austin chronicle article...

In their opening statements to the court, Reed's court-appointed lawyers said they could readily explain the DNA found in Stites' body. Initially unknown to Jimmy Fennell, they said, Reed was having a sexual affair with Stites -- a relationship the attorneys argued would be not only scandalous but also dangerous in a small Texas town. "There was interracial dating in this case," Reed attorney Lydia Clay-Jackson told the jury, "and you will hear from people who will talk to you about the fact that there was a secret affair."
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So these secret, dangerous lovers just couldn't resist the need to go and get a dilly bar?

 
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That reporter, Jordan Smith, is not an ethical journalist.

Reading the punishment phase transcripts, it is clear that the women who testified had been traumatized by terrifying sexual assaults. But what is also clear is that solving those crimes, each involving a white woman or girl — including a 12-year-old who had been assaulted in 1989 — was not a priority for police. Instead of aggressively pursuing these cases, it appears that law enforcement had done little to solve them. Then prosecutors came in and weaponized the women’s stories in an effort to send a man to death, in part by playing up the dangerous and offensive stereotype of a black male predator out to hurt white women.
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Law enforcement didn't have the necessary links to solve them until it all came together with DNA. The fact that this reporter can mention this and use it the way she did, without mentioning that the DNA taken from the 12 year old girls rape kit matched Reed is absolutely disgusting. There is no good explanation for that. 

 
I'm not familiar with this case, but my general go-to journalist for criminal justice issues generally is Radley Balko. He retweeted Michael Barajas praising the Jordan Smith article that lod001 linked to earlier, saying that Smith has been writing about this case for nearly two decades. I don't know enough about the facts to arbitrate the criticisms parasaurolophus leveled against the article.

In addition, I generally hold the Innocence Project in high regard. Here's their take.

 
Slapdash said:
@parasaurolophus:  What is a good link to learn about this case?
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I wish there was one single link. You pretty much need to read the court documents and then several articles to piece things together. The more you read, the more you see how each article either intentionally ignores certain things or twists them.

About the only thing the media has been good at is describing how bad of a person her fiancee was. And he was bad. Ended up in jail for rape. Had multiple complaints against him from when he was a cop for harassing women. 

But the thing is, you dont have to gloss over or cover up the bad stuff about reed to present this case. 

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
I'm not familiar with this case, but my general go-to journalist for criminal justice issues generally is Radley Balko. He retweeted Michael Barajas praising the Jordan Smith article that lod001 linked to earlier, saying that Smith has been writing about this case for nearly two decades. I don't know enough about the facts to arbitrate the criticisms parasaurolophus leveled against the article.

In addition, I generally hold the Innocence Project in high regard. Here's their take.
Click to expand...
I read the innocence projects 10 facts and found that they are pretty liberal with what a fact is. Also the word "impossible" means something very different to them. Their doctors did not prove that his guilt is scientifically or medically impossible.

For example the medical examiner testified that he thought the victim had been sexually assaulted. That he saw injuries consistent with that. One of their doctors said that such damage could be caused from a hard poop so sexual assault was not conclusive. 

They relied on a weather service report from the next town over to determine the weather, but disregarded part of it because they thought things looked drier in the videos. SO they concluded the weather had no effect on rate of composition. 

They disagreed with the medical examiner estimate for time of death based on what they saw in photos.

Several other examples of this kind of stuff. I am not even arguing that they are incorrect or that there conclusions don't have logical basis, just pointing out that the innocence project obviously has zero issues exaggerating claims.  

The biggest issue I took with them was when in 2015 the DA agreed to have some more items tested for DNA. One of the things tested were the clothes she was wearing. Guess what? Reed's DNA turned up on them. Obviously this was not a positive turn of events for the Reed case. So the innocence project spun it and said that the killer had redressed her in her clothes from the previous night, the night Reed claimed to have been with her. 

 
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Maurile Tremblay said:
I'm not familiar with this case, but my general go-to journalist for criminal justice issues generally is Radley Balko. He retweeted Michael Barajas praising the Jordan Smith article that lod001 linked to earlier, saying that Smith has been writing about this case for nearly two decades. I don't know enough about the facts to arbitrate the criticisms parasaurolophus leveled against the article.
Click to expand...
Just look at her usage of the big bold type on the right side of the page. 

by Fennell’s own account, Stites died while she was at home alone with him.
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That is cut from 

There is another glaring issue for the medical experts who have reviewed the case: The state’s timeline for Stites’s murder was off — by hours. According to the pathologists, changes to Stites’s body at the time it was found demonstrated that she’d been killed before midnight and then dumped in the woods the following morning, meaning, by Fennell’s own account, Stites died while she was at home alone with him.
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Would you agree that is deliberately misleading to cut that little snippet? 

 
It is very difficult to second guess a jury or judge regarding evidence one doesn’t have in front of one or a trial one didn’t see. I can’t comment on ultimate guilt or innocence. 
 

That said, where there is any reasonable question whatsoever as to whether the perpetrator is guilty of a capital crime, I am against the death penalty. 

 
More on Jordan Smith...

This tweet is some more ridiculousness. 

For Gannon & his crew, the seatbelt in the truck was also important. The driver’s belt was fastened when the truck was found. As if someone had been sitting on it and not belted in. Who does that, they pondered? Cops.
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This is one of the dumber "investigative" points I have ever read. Let's say she is right and Jimmy Fennell did in fact like to buckle the belt like that.

Ummmmm....It was his truck!!!!  

 
I'm against the death penalty as, if its not something you're gonna bat 1.000 with, you don't get to do it.

But that said, it stretches credibility to think this guy isn't guilty.   

I would be curious to see this belt tested though.  

 
So Shaun King is out there peddling a document that he is pretending exonerates Reed in the brutal rape of a 12 year old girl(Angela). 

If you look at it you will see it was an affidavit for a search warrant to get DNA samples for somebody named James Slaughter. King is claiming that this is who Angela implicated for the rape that day.

So they get the warrant and have his DNA tested and guess what??? James Slaughter was eliminated as a suspect because his DNA did not match the rape kit. 

Now what is most disgusting about Mr. Shaun King's actions here is that his tweet....

On September 6, 1989 a 12 year old girl in Bastrop, Texas was sexually assaulted. She told family and police that she knew the young man who did it. His name was James Slaughter. Here is the affidavit from that day. This was nearly 10 years before Rodney Reed was jailed.
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is a deliberate lie. Not a mistake. Not a misspoke. This man is deliberately lying. Why do I know that???? Look at the file he attached. If you look carefully you can see he cut off the date after the signature. It was actually dated in November. 

Why is that relevant? There is no documentation backing up that the Angela named James Slaughter the day the rape happened. There is allegedly a video from a subsequent interview perhaps with a caseworker, perhaps with an officer barton or perhaps an officer board(reed's team is out there saying different variations of all these). 

I have not been able to find said video. The defense team asks her about it during the punishment phase. They asked her if she named Slaughter in an interview with Ofiicer Board, but they only ask her one question and I cant see a record of a videotape of her naming slaughter being submitted. Officer Board testified after Angela and they never ask him if Angela named Slaughter to him. Angela stated she did not remember saying that to an officer and only remembers saying to her caseworker something her friend Joy* said that she overheard slaughter saying. 

There is zero doubt that she stated from the get go she couldn't see well and that she had her face covered up twice. 

Regardless of any of that Slaughter was clearly not the rapist since his DNA was excluded after the lab tests. Which is why he was not charged with the crime. Obviously the exonerating DNA tests came after the affidavit to get the DNA samples so anybody out there using that affidavit is a liar. 

 
parasaurolophus said:
 It is a very interesting case with room for lots of opinions. 

*I say probably because it isn't absolutely 100%, but the DNA from the 12 year olds rape kit was like only a 1 in 5.5 billion chance that it wasn't him.
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There isn't any room for opinion here.  He did this part of it, at the least.

 
One thing that is fascinating in reading all of this is just how amazing DNA evidence is and how so many things started to come together for old unsolved cases.

That James Slaughter guy was eliminated as a suspect from the rape of Angela, but the DNA test implicated him in a rape that happened prior to that, completely unrelated to any of the ones discussed here already.   

 
Smack Tripper said:
I'm against the death penalty as, if its not something you're gonna bat 1.000 with, you don't get to do it.

But that said, it stretches credibility to think this guy isn't guilty.   

I would be curious to see this belt tested though.  
Click to expand...
The belt has been handled by so many people. When this case happened, touch dna testing wasn't a thing. The jury members held the belt, defense attorneys, prosecutors, even the court reporter moved the belt during the trial. None wore gloves since DNA testing was different then. WIthout a visible stain or blood smear, etc. they just didn't test for DNA.

You may ask wouldn't the state want to test it now because reed's DNA could be on it? But dont forget the state also already went down this road with Reed. They consented to testing some items and when the evidence came back pointing to Reed, his team just argued the DNA got on the clothing because of the prior consensual relations and that she just wore the same clothes without washing them. That's also why they say his saliva was found on her chest. You know, cuz she never showers or washes her clothes.   

 
parasaurolophus said:
Regardless of any of that Slaughter was clearly not the rapist since his DNA was excluded after the lab tests. Which is why he was not charged with the crime. Obviously the exonerating DNA tests came after the affidavit to get the DNA samples so anybody out there using that affidavit is a liar. 
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I don't know enough about this case to really discuss the facts involved here, but I would caution anyone who thinks "DNA test exclusion is 100% certainty that he didn't do it."  That's definitely not the case, though it unquestionably makes it much, much less likely that he was the rapist.  

On a side note, the State of Texas is kind of famous for improperly testing DNA.

 
More on Jordan Smith, professional liar. She claims...

 I got interested in the case back in 2001 when evidence came to light that the state withheld the results of some DNA testing from Reed’s trial attorneys. The DNA came from beer cans found near Stacey Stites’s body on April 23, 1996.
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Oooooooooh that sounds nefarious! A cover up!

Oh wait, it's just crap. First of all the beer cans were actually old and found on the other side of the road from near where her body was found in the woods. Secondly the prosecution says they did give them a copy.

Regardless even if the defense didn't get a copy of the report it is completely irrelevant as the report was completely worthless. Two investigators swabbed the beer cans. One for the state, (Wilson Young). One for the defense(Dr. Elizabeth Johnson). Johnson's results were completed first. When the prosecutor reviewed the report from Young that could not exclude two police officers, one that was friends with Fennell , using DQ Alpha testing she ordered for another more advanced test using polymarkers. She then reviewed the report from Elizabeth Johnson that showed the DQ alpha testing not excluding them and then the more advanced testing excluding them so she canceled the more detailed testing. 

Reed's team filed an appeal saying they were never given the test results from the state. The judge determined so freaking what. As the judge should have since the results they were whining about not getting were a lower quality test that the defense's own report would have easily refuted.

For Jordan Smith to present that as some sort of scandal is absurd. Those beer cans were determined by the defense and the prosecution to be nothing more than litter and that is why they were never addressed during trial by the defense even though they were well aware of their existence. 

 
Henry Ford said:
I don't know enough about this case to really discuss the facts involved here, but I would caution anyone who thinks "DNA test exclusion is 100% certainty that he didn't do it."  That's definitely not the case, though it unquestionably makes it much, much less likely that he was the rapist.  

On a side note, the State of Texas is kind of famous for improperly testing DNA.
Click to expand...
This is the exact type of campaign Reed's team is manufacturing. Which is kind of funny since the innocence project is pretty much asking people to ignore DNA evidence.  

I guess it is possible that the sehawks didn't actually win last night too and they altered the TV footage.

 
parasaurolophus said:
This is the exact type of campaign Reed's team is manufacturing. Which is kind of funny since the innocence project is pretty much asking people to ignore DNA evidence.  

I guess it is possible that the sehawks didn't actually win last night too and they altered the TV footage.
Click to expand...
That's really not necessary to get a false exclusion on a DNA test.

 
Again, I have no opinion on this actual case.  But to say that guy was "excluded" in DNA evidence is not the same thing as to say that it's not possible he was the perpetrator. 

 
Henry Ford said:
Again, I have no opinion on this actual case.  But to say that guy was "excluded" in DNA evidence is not the same thing as to say that it's not possible he was the perpetrator. 
Click to expand...
Actually in this case, you can say it is not possible he was the perpetrator. At least to a degree of certainty similar to Seattle having won last night. 

1. rape kit done on 12yo girl

2. Slaughter's DNA excluded.

3. Reed's dna a match for 12 yo rape kit. 

So in the context of this discussion. Where the person that the DNA implicated is trying to blame somebody else(slaughter) and that person's DNA was tested and excluded, yes it is not possible without a crazy conspiracy style leap. 

Obviously in a scenario where there was no other testing and a person went in for a test and was excluded you could argue that they could have messed up the test or that they could have still committed the crime but not left dna, or whatever other theory you want to come up with. A false exclusion and a false positive. Yeah, no. There is a reason his defense team didn't challenge the dna results during the punishment phase in court. 

 
parasaurolophus said:
Actually in this case, you can say it is not possible he was the perpetrator. At least to a degree of certainty similar to Seattle having won last night. 

1. rape kit done on 12yo girl

2. Slaughter's DNA excluded.

3. Reed's dna a match for 12 yo rape kit. 

So in the context of this discussion. Where the person that the DNA implicated is trying to blame somebody else(slaughter) and that person's DNA was tested and excluded, yes it is not possible without a crazy conspiracy style leap. 

Obviously in a scenario where there was no other testing and a person went in for a test and was excluded you could argue that they could have messed up the test or that they could have still committed the crime but not left dna, or whatever other theory you want to come up with. A false exclusion and a false positive. Yeah, no. There is a reason his defense team didn't challenge the dna results during the punishment phase in court. 
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If those things are all true - again, I don’t know the facts - then certainly in context. But #2 doesn’t do it alone. 

 
If those are true, then he should be in prison for life for that rape.  I believe the Supreme Court has said you can’t execute people for rape, though I certainly don’t always agree with the Supreme Court. 

 
Kal El said:
I already hold a dim view of people who harm children, especially predators, but to do that to a 12 year old and a developmentally disabled girl, too? The governor should probably not make a call.
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Yeah, now that I’m reading up on it, it looks like the defense is “the cop husband framed him for this one, so he framed him for all the others at the same time.”

 
Henry Ford said:
Yeah, now that I’m reading up on it, it looks like the defense is “the cop husband framed him for this one, so he framed him for all the others at the same time.”
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The framing thing just makes no sense at all. He would have to somehow trick Linda Schluter into picking Rodney out of a lineup. Which is what finally gets the ball rolling on the frame job after the case had essentially become a cold case? Then the DNA evidence that had previously been collected would have had to be doctored in advance as a setup for this. We would have to believe that James Slaughter raped Angela, but that the police let him go because he was a high school football star. We have to believe that Vivian Harbottle was raped by somebody else and police managed to rig those results too. 

We also need to rule out of our minds that in 1987 in Wichita Falls a woman accused him of beating her and raping her. She was 19. He denied knowing her at first but then DNA testing proved otherwise. He then stated they had a relationship and that the sex was consensual. He was acquitted. Somehow those DNA results though were rigged as part of a long con of course.  

That's where the whole frame job falls apart. These samples were all tested and collected over the course of many years and in multiple jurisdictions. They all match.The defense never even attempts to refute the results and I actually dont think they have even in any subsequent appeals, but he has filed like 12 of them so they might have. 

He claims she used to call him on a payphone. No phone records ever were put forth to prove this. The store she worked at offered a $50,000 reward for any information and you are telling me that none of the people that allegedly knew about her relationship with Rodney would have come forward to get that money??? 

 
parasaurolophus said:
The framing thing just makes no sense at all. He would have to somehow trick Linda Schluter into picking Rodney out of a lineup. Which is what finally gets the ball rolling on the frame job after the case had essentially become a cold case? Then the DNA evidence that had previously been collected would have had to be doctored in advance as a setup for this. We would have to believe that James Slaughter raped Angela, but that the police let him go because he was a high school football star. We have to believe that Vivian Harbottle was raped by somebody else and police managed to rig those results too. 

We also need to rule out of our minds that in 1987 in Wichita Falls a woman accused him of beating her and raping her. She was 19. He denied knowing her at first but then DNA testing proved otherwise. He then stated they had a relationship and that the sex was consensual. He was acquitted. Somehow those DNA results though were rigged as part of a long con of course.  

That's where the whole frame job falls apart. These samples were all tested and collected over the course of many years and in multiple jurisdictions. They all match.The defense never even attempts to refute the results and I actually dont think they have even in any subsequent appeals, but he has filed like 12 of them so they might have. 

He claims she used to call him on a payphone. No phone records ever were put forth to prove this. The store she worked at offered a $50,000 reward for any information and you are telling me that none of the people that allegedly knew about her relationship with Rodney would have come forward to get that money??? 
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I’m not telling you anything of the sort.  I simply said that looks like the defense being put forth. 

 
whoknew said:
Court of Criminal Appeals granted stay.
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Parole board also had just prior recommended a 120 day reprieve. 

I havent been able to find a copy of the November 12th appeal that the stay was based on. You didnt come across that by any chance in whatever article you read did you? 

 
parasaurolophus said:
I read the innocence projects 10 facts and found that they are pretty liberal with what a fact is. Also the word "impossible" means something very different to them. Their doctors did not prove that his guilt is scientifically or medically impossible.

For example the medical examiner testified that he thought the victim had been sexually assaulted. That he saw injuries consistent with that. One of their doctors said that such damage could be caused from a hard poop so sexual assault was not conclusive. 

They relied on a weather service report from the next town over to determine the weather, but disregarded part of it because they thought things looked drier in the videos. SO they concluded the weather had no effect on rate of composition. 

They disagreed with the medical examiner estimate for time of death based on what they saw in photos.

Several other examples of this kind of stuff. I am not even arguing that they are incorrect or that there conclusions don't have logical basis, just pointing out that the innocence project obviously has zero issues exaggerating claims.  

The biggest issue I took with them was when in 2015 the DA agreed to have some more items tested for DNA. One of the things tested were the clothes she was wearing. Guess what? Reed's DNA turned up on them. Obviously this was not a positive turn of events for the Reed case. So the innocence project spun it and said that the killer had redressed her in her clothes from the previous night, the night Reed claimed to have been with her. 
Click to expand...
Well their medical examiner, Bayardo, actually wrote a letter stating that had he known that the state would use his tod as scientific proof that he would have advised them not to. He based it off what time fennells said she always left for work, so.....

 
Odious poo said:
Well their medical examiner, Bayardo, actually wrote a letter stating that had he known that the state would use his tod as scientific proof that he would have advised them not to. He based it off what time fennells said she always left for work, so.....
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This is a popular Reed propaganda talking point. This was addressed at trial. The prosecution used his estimate in constructing their case.  The following is from the trial transcript Volume 48 page 113. I have the file saved or i would link it, but i dont think it should be hard to find with that detail if you dont believe me. 

Q: Okay. Is time of death and making that
determination, is that 'an exact science?
A: No, it's not a precise scientific way of
making a determination of the time of death,
we only can make estimates.
Q: Within an hour or two hours or something like
that?
Q: Or four hours or so.
Q: Okay. ' In this case you, of course, learned
that her body was discovered about 3:00 p.m.
the day before, correct?
A: Correct.
Q: And based on that did you, yourself, make an
estimate of approximately what her time of
death would have been?
A: Based on the changes that occur after death in the body, I make an estimation of the time of
death being around 3:00 a.m. on April 23, 1996

 
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