Ex parte Rodney Reed
Brief Details
- Case No.: WR-50,961-12
- Brief Filed: October 09, 2026
- Jurisdiction: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Key Topics in the Brief
Briefs
Argument(s)
Tunnel vision and confirmation bias undermine criminal investigations, particularly when an alternative suspect is a police officer. Investigators’ failure to meaningfully investigate Stacey Stites’s fiancé, officer Jimmy Fennell, or pursue evidence of Stites’s consensual relationship with Reed compromised the fairness of Reed’s trial. Investigative deficiencies must be assessed cumulatively under the totality of the circumstances, even when individual failures would not independently warrant relief. Those failures, combined with the State’s suppression of material exculpatory evidence and misleading assurances about the investigation’s completeness, violated Reed’s due process rights. The Court should grant habeas relief or, at minimum, remand for an evidentiary hearing.
Author(s)
Cynthia Eva Hujar Orr, Goldstein & Orr, San Antonio, TX; Andrew Gladstein, Rachel E. Sereix, Sohyun Jeon, Israa Saber, and Aidan McGirr, Freshfields US LLP, New York, NY
