Texas DNA expert backs Rodney Reed's call for more testing

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Rodney Reed is again petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court in pursuit of additional DNA testing of crime scene evidence, and a Texas DNA expert has filed a brief supporting the effort.

Reed was convicted at trial and sentenced to death for the murder and sexual assault of 19-year-old Stacey Stites in Bastrop in 1996. Reed has maintained his innocence. Though his conviction was based on DNA evidence found in Stites, Reed has fought for further DNA testing of evidence that he says could exonerate him.

Represented by the New York City-based Innocence Project, Reed has fought his conviction at practically every available level of the state and federal court system. Along the way, he has amassed new evidence that, his defense team argues, casts doubt on evidence prosecutors used to convict him at trial, like Stites’ time of death and the nature of her relationship with Reed before she was killed.

Reed remains on death row, with his execution date paused since 2019 by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

In June, Reed filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court, a request for the high court to review a decision by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Reed argues the Fifth Circuit wrongfully upheld the constitutionality of Texas’ post-conviction DNA testing law, which prosecutors used to block Reed’s request for more testing.

Reed wants testing done on the belt used to strangle Stites, and he argues possible contamination of the evidence shouldn’t be a barrier in the law or for experts to overcome.

“Reed’s petition explains that the DNA-testing law violates due process because it is arbitrary and irrational,” Reed’s defense team said in a statement Tuesday. “The law’s non-contamination requirement forecloses testing even though the advanced testing methods available today can determine whether a known profile is present in a multi-contributor sample, and even though Texas itself regularly submits potentially contaminated evidence to TDPS for DNA testing to use against criminal defendants at trial.”

DNA expert steps up

On July 10, Chase Baumgartner filed an amicus brief – commonly called a “friend of the court” that allows a person who isn’t a party in the case to submit information and offer expertise.

Baumgartner was a lead forensic scientist with the Texas Department of Public Safety. He argues Reed’s request for additional testing should be accepted, and the science of DNA analysis allows for multi-contributor situations like the belt evidence.

“Currently, the courts have denied Petitioner’s statutory right to DNA testing based on a guess,” Baumgartner wrote in his brief. “DNA testing has to be performed to know, rather than speculate, whether the evidence was handled correctly and to check for contamination.”

Up to now, prosecutors have fought against further DNA testing in Reed’s case. The state filed a motion to extend its deadline to respond to Reed’s petition to mid-August, which the Supreme Court granted.