DNA testing could save Texas man’s life (Opinion) – CNN.com

The Walls Unit in Huntsville houses the Texas death chamber. The state has executed more than 500 inmates since 1976.

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Editor's note: Dan Simon is the Richard L. and Maria B. Crutcher professor of law and psychology at the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law. He is the author of "In Doubt: The Psychology of the Criminal Justice Process." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) -- If all goes as planned, the state of Texas will soon execute Rodney Reed for murdering Stacey Stites 18 years ago in the city of Georgetown. The only hitch in this plan is that Reed might actually be innocent of the crime.

Getting to the bottom of this quandary might require little more than a simple DNA test of items recovered from the crime scene, as requested by his attorney and the Innocence Project.

But if the state of Texas has its way, Reed will be executed without those tests ever being conducted. The fate of the DNA testing is the subject of a hearing in a Bastrop County court, scheduled for Tuesday.

Dan Simon

On the face of it, Reed's tireless claims of innocence are not without merit. The police investigation was riddled with glaring foibles and failures. Crucially, the detectives gave up briskly on investigating a likely suspect -- Stites' fianc, Jimmy Fennell. Fennell was a police officer who was accused of committing acts of sexual violence and was ultimately sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman he took into police custody. Fennell, according to affidavits, was irate that his fiance, a white woman, was having an affair with Reed, who is African-American.

Why on earth, one wonders, would Texas battle fiercely against conducting the testing? Would it be naive to propose the state should welcome it?

The answer cannot be the meager costs of running the tests or the negligible time they would take to run. Nor could the state claim to be acting out of respect for the victim's loved ones -- a dubious justification from the outset -- given that numerous members of her family are campaigning publicly on Reed's behalf.

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DNA testing could save Texas man's life (Opinion) - CNN.com