The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to intervene in the long-running legal battle of Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed, declining to hear his challenge to the state's restrictive post-conviction DNA testing statute. The decision effectively clears a major procedural hurdle for the state to proceed with Reed's execution for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites, a crime he has consistently denied.
Reed, who is Black, was convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of 19-year-old Stacey Stites in Bastrop County. He has maintained for decades that the actual killer was Stites's white fiancé, former police officer Jimmy Fennell, alleging Fennell discovered the victim was having an affair with Reed and killed her in a rage. Fennell, who later served prison time for an unrelated sexual assault, has denied any involvement in Stites's death.
Central Dispute Over Untested Evidence
The core of Reed's latest appeal focused on the refusal of Bastrop County District Attorney Bryan Goertz to authorize DNA testing on the murder weapon—a webbed belt used to strangle Stites. Reed's legal team argued this refusal persisted despite what they called "compelling evidence" of his innocence. "Once again, Reed must call on this Court to intervene when no other court will give him justice," his attorneys wrote in their petition.
They specifically challenged a provision in Texas law that bars testing on evidence deemed potentially "contaminated," arguing this creates an arbitrary standard that violates due process rights. "It is likely that the killer's DNA is on the belt," Reed's attorneys contended, "and a DNA test could reveal the truth."
State's Defense and Legal Precedent
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, successfully urged the justices to stay out of the case. Paxton's office argued that the Supreme Court has historically deferred to state legislatures on setting the rules for post-conviction DNA access. The state framed Reed's request as misunderstanding the chain-of-custody requirements crucial for reliable genetic analysis. "Whatever he wants to call it — contamination, tampering, or comingling — it all bears on the chain of custody for DNA evidence," Paxton wrote in a court filing.
This ruling marks a reversal from a 2022 decision where the Court, in a 6-3 vote, allowed Reed's broader lawsuit seeking testing to proceed. That earlier ruling overcame dissents from Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch. The Court had previously denied a separate petition from Reed in 2020, though Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted then that the case "presented a substantial body of evidence that, if true, casts doubt on the veracity and scientific validity of the evidence on which Reed's conviction rests."
Broader Context for Post-Conviction Appeals
The decision arrives amid ongoing legal debates over access to evidence and the finality of convictions. Earlier this year, the Court heard arguments in a case where an Alabama inmate challenged his conviction due to his lawyer's alleged KKK ties, testing the constitutional right to effective counsel. Furthermore, the Court's approach to procedural barriers in criminal appeals was evident in a recent ruling that reinforced qualified immunity for law enforcement, underscoring a judicial tendency to uphold established legal thresholds.
Notably, the Court's handling of Reed's case differs from its June ruling in Gutierrez v. Texas. In that 6-3 decision, the justices sided with death row inmate Ruben Gutierrez, permitting his challenge to the same Texas DNA statute to move forward. The divergent outcomes highlight the case-specific nature of these appeals and the high bar for federal intervention in state post-conviction processes.
With the Supreme Court's refusal to grant certiorari, Reed's avenues for further appeal are severely limited. The decision returns the case to Texas courts, where the state is now positioned to seek an execution date for an inmate whose fight for DNA testing has drawn national attention and claims of a wrongful conviction.
