Supreme Court to hear appeal of Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed
CBSN
The Supreme Court will hear an appeal Tuesday from a Black man on Texas' death row who maintains his innocence and whose case has drawn the attention of celebrities, lawmakers and millions of Americans. Rodney Reed, 54, was convicted by an all-white jury in 1998 of the rape and murder of Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old white woman.
Reed has spent decades on death row after he was sentenced to die in the murder of Stites in Bastrop, Texas, but the state's highest court issued a stay days before his scheduled execution in November 2019. As his execution date loomed, the case gained national attention.
Traces of his sperm were found on the victim's body, but Reed insists he is innocent of the 1996 murder and that he and Stites had a secret consensual relationship.
