Austin, Tx–The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals this week denied another appeal for a new trial by Bastrop’s Rodney Reed, convicted and sentenced to death in 1998 for the 1996 rape and strangulation of 19-year-old Stacy Stites, a Smithville High School graduate who was employed at the H-E-B food store in Bastrop.
Essentially the state’s highest court for criminal matters said even if purported new evidence about another suspect in Stites’ death had been available at the time of Reed’s trial, the jury would not likely have reached a different verdict.
From the beginning Reed’s defense lawyers have argued that Jimmy Fennell Jr., to whom Stites was engaged to be married at the time of her death, is more likely her killer than Reed. Fennell, a Giddings police officer in 1996. has since been embroiled in a series of accusations, which culminated last year in a conviction for sexual misconduct with a woman in his custody while he was a police officer in Georgetown. Fennell pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in that case.
Reed’s lawyers vowed to continue their appeals seeking a new trial. The next phase of appeals is likely to be in the Federal court system, since appeals in state courts appear largely exhausted.