Supreme Court rejects appeal from longtime Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed
The justices left in place a ruling against Reed from the federal appeals court in New Orleans for the second time in less than three years.
Updated on: March 23, 2026 / 10:54 AM EDT / AP
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from longtime Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed who has sought to test crime-scene evidence that he says will help clear him.
Reed was sentenced to death for the 1996 killing of 19-year-old Stacey Stites. Prosecutors have refused to allow for DNA testing of the webbed belt that was used to strangle Stites as she made her way to work at a supermarket in Bastrop, a rural community about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Austin.
Prosecutors say Reed also raped Stites, but he contends that he was having a consensual affair with her.
Reed has long maintained that Stites' fiance, former police officer Jimmy Fennell, was the real killer. Fennell was angry about the interracial affair, Reed says. Stites was white and Reed is Black. Fennell, who served time for sexual assault and was released from prison in 2018, has denied killing Stites.