have no adequate dna testing and yet you want to execute a person. everything that is wrong with criminal justice shows up in this case. he was scheduled to die by looeting injection today and now his case is back in court. but it rodney reed did not kill stacy stites then who did? reed s lawyers think they know. the state s case against rodney reed in 1998 was so persuasive it took a jury six hours to convict him of the rape and murder of stacy stites. am i being charged with something? now, new evidence that reed s lawyer says points to a different suspect.
i just it felt like it was in a dream. it wasn t real, this can t be happening. to this day, reed maintains his innocence. all that evidence has always been out there, it s been in the state s hands all this time. reed s case is now in the hands of the innocence project. a decade s old organization that has been involved in the mishandling of 300 wrongfully convicted people. they believe there is enough new information to clear rodney reed. this case has everything wrong with it that is wrong with the american criminal justice testimony today. you have racial discrimination, you have misconduct by the state, you have ineffective 00 sift antss of counsel, and
prior bad acts regardless of whether the person in question has previously been charged with or finally convicted of the crime or act. five women take the stand against reed each alleging he had sexually assaulted them. after just four hours of deliberation by the jury, he is sentenced to death. rodney reed is moved to livingston texas, death row. almost a decade later, a new development. jimmy fanel a police officer and stites fiancee, is accused of kidnapping a woman, driving her to a recreation area and raining her. today he is serving a 10-year sentence in a texas prison. you hear about jimmy fanel s plea years later. yes. what went through your mind then? if you re back in that jury
reed said he was trying to avoid saying something damaging. i didn t want to incriminate myself. i didn t want to be questioned about it. i had nothing i m a black man in a small town. i m not pulling a race card or anything like that, but the nature of the it was a small city i lived in. almost a year after stacey stites is killed, rodney reed is charged with her rape and murder. to this day he maintains he is innocent. you had nothing to do with this case? i had nothing to do with this case, nothing at all. rodney s family hires a private attorney to represent him but the legal bills are too much. reed is then appointed two attorneys by the state. during the trial, the defense team points to the possibility of another killer. prosecutors say dna evidence will prove rodney reed did it. the defense told the jury there is plenty of reasonable doubt. it could have been stacy s fiancee, a police officer who
stacy alive. for a period of time, he was considered a suspect. but almost a year after her death, with the crime still unsolved, rodney reed was brought in for questioning. he denied knowing the victim. this girl is stacy steitz. have you ever seen her before? no, i haven t. never dated her? no, i haven t. investigators had evidence that directly linked reed to stites. semen found in the body was matched to reed. reed claimed they were having a consensual affair. it took an all-white jury just hours to convict him of the rape and murder of stacey stites. when you found out that you were getting the death penalty, did it feel real to you? did it feel distant? it was a nonfeeling. it was like you know really it was unbelievable.