https://themilitant.com/2019/11/23/protests-win-stay-of-execution-new-hearing-for-rodney-reed/
Protests win stay of execution, new hearing for Rodney Reed
By Alyson Kennedy
Vol. 83/No. 44
December 2, 2019
Nov. 17 action in Austin, Texas, celebrates victory, gives boost to
fight to free Rodney Reed.
Militant/Alyson Kennedy
Nov. 17 action in Austin, Texas, celebrates victory, gives boost to
fight to free Rodney Reed.
AUSTIN, Texas — “My brother’s fight is not over,” Rodrick Reed told the
rally of some 100 people who gathered in front of the Texas governor’s
mansion Nov 17. They were celebrating a stay of execution won by his
brother Rodney two days earlier, five days before the state had
scheduled to execute him by lethal injection.
“We are fighting for full exoneration,” Reed said. “We are fighting for
his freedom. Strap your boots up tight and get ready to fight.”
The campaign to stop the execution and free Rodney Reed, who has been on
death row for more than 20 years, has gained real momentum. Protests
have been held at the state Capitol here and in Reed’s hometown of
Bastrop. Support for the case has come from state politicians from both
parties and celebrities across the country, including Oprah Winfrey,
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and many more.
The public campaign forced the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to block
the execution and send Reed’s case back to Bastrop County, where he was
originally tried, to examine new evidence.
“We had witnesses that were intimidated, but now it’s a new day,” Sandra
Reed, Rodney’s mother, told KEYE-TV. “The truth will and shall set him
free.”
“I see people here today that have been active in this case for decades
and I see a lot of new faces,” Randi Hensley from The Abolitionist
organization told the rally. “What you did matters.”
Carmen Pagliari told the Militant that she “heard about this case a
month ago and began to read about it and got more passionate for justice
for Reed,” she said. “I have always been against the death penalty.”
End the death penalty!
“My brother Luis Castro Perez is on death row for something he didn’t
do,” Delia Perez Meyer told the crowd. “Thank you for being part of this
fight for Rodney Reed. There have been 565 executions [since 1982] in
Texas, we don’t want any more.”
There are now 217 inmates in Texas on death row.
“The district attorney must not keep continuing to play political
football to keep this man incarcerated,” Mark Clements, who won his
freedom after being framed up by Chicago cops and spending years in
prison, told the crowd.
Reed, who is African American, was convicted by an all-white jury in
1998 for the rape and murder two years earlier of 19-year-old Stacey
Stites, a cashier in Bastrop. Reed, who was seeing Stites, has always
maintained his innocence. There is growing evidence that Stites was
killed by former cop Jimmy Fennell Jr.
The state has repeatedly refused to order DNA testing of the belt that
was used to strangle Stites and other crime scene evidence. “Test the
DNA” is a popular chant at protests demanding Reed be freed.
Gerardo Sanchez Corona, Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S.
Senate from Texas, attended the Nov. 17 action.
“The case of Rodney Reed is one more example of how the rulers use the
death penalty to scare working people,” Sanchez Corona said to applause
at a Nov. 14 protest. “They don’t have any solutions to the economic,
moral and political crisis of the capitalist system. The rulers fear the
working class when we stand up and fight. This is why we need to build
the labor movement and continue the fight to abolish the death penalty
and free Rodney Reed.”
Another round of actions demanding Rodney Reed’s exoneration were
announced for Dec. 22.
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Back CN rail workers, Asarco strikers fights!
•Asarco strikers fight for union, first raise in 10 years
•Bolivia protests demand end to rightists’ ouster of Morales gov’t
•Step up pace to make fall books, fund, Militant drive
•Protests win stay of execution, new hearing for Rodney Reed
•Democrats’ impeachment drive targets working people
•‘For recognition of Israel and of a Palestinian state’
Feature Articles •International conference in Havana says ‘US hands off
Cuba!’
Also In This Issue •Hundreds protest in London, demand ‘No more Grenfells!’
•Bakery owner who won victory against college dies
•Working farmers face bankruptcy, record debt
•Hong Kong workers back students against police attacks
•Contribute to the 2019 Socialist Workers Party fund
•Fall Campaign to sell Militant subscriptions and books Oct. 5 – Dec. 10
(Week 6)
•Socialist Workers Party Fund Drive Oct. 5 – Dec. 10 (Week 6)
Editorials •Support Canadian rail workers strike!
On the Picket Line •Rail workers speak out against job cuts, threats to
safety
•Washington paraeducators gain teachers support, wage raise
•Meatpackers in Quebec strike for higher wages
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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David Hume
“ In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees
of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral
evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. ”
― David Hume,
