ustxtxb_obs_2006_07_28_50_00025-00000_000.pdf

PIs continued from page 5 on divestment. Schott needn’t wait for the list of terrorist states. The U.S. State Department Web page lists five such countries, including Sudan, which received its dubious designation in 1993. Chris Holton of the Center for Security Policy called Schott’s position a “copout.” Less herd-bound states, including Missouri, Louisiana, and Illinois, have already started divesting. Schott remains unconvinced: “At this point, we’re investing in companies with the highest rate of return and the lowest risk to make the most money.” STATE VS. REED In April 1996, the body of Stacey Stites, a white, 20-yearold woman from Giddings, was found dumped in a field in Bastrop, southeast of Austin. A year after the crime, an extensive list of suspects was suddenly narrowed to oneRodney Reed, a 29-year-old black man from Bastrop. In less than four hours of deliberation, the all-white jury that heard the case convicted Reed of rape and murder, based on a single piece of DNA evidence found at the crime scene. Soon after, Reed was sentenced to death. Now, 10 years after the crime, Reed sits on death row, his case pending before the state’s highest criminal appeals court. A recently released documentary raises fresh questions about Reed’s case and offers a detailed look at possible corruption in the small-town justice system that convicted him. In October 2005, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals remanded Reed’s case to the state district court in Bastrop based on evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. In June, after hearing new evidence left out of the original trial, state District Judge Reva TowsleeCorbett ruled that Reed’s attorneys failed to prove the new evidence could have changed the outcome of the trial. Reed’s attorneys appealed the ruling, and the Court of Criminal Appeals is expected to take up Reed’s case again this fall. The newly released documentary, State vs. Reed, outlines evidence left out of the trial that clouds its outcome. The film was recently screened in Austin, with proceeds benefiting Reed’s family. The film sheds light on the racially charged atmosphere surrounding the case: Reed is a black man accused of killing a white woman who was engaged to a white Bastrop police officer. Reed also claims he was having an affair with Stites during her engagement. The affair could explain the one piece of DNA linking Reed to the crime scene: a small amount of sperm found in Stites’ body. The affair also gives motive to another possible suspect who largely escaped investigation, Stites’ fianc, Bastrop Police Officer Jimmy Fennell. “My personal opinion when I heard that she had been killed was that Fennell did it,” says former Bastrop prosecutor Steven Keng in the film. “When we heard she had been having an affair with a black guy, it was like well, that’s why he did it because… that would be a tremendous blow to his ego.” Reed’s defenders continue to argue that the prosecution did not adequately investigate other possible suspects, including Fennell. Police officers never searched the apartment of Fennell and Stites, the last place she was known to have been. Fennell also twice failed a polygraph test when questioned about Stites’ death. Yet he was quickly eliminated as a suspect. Fennell’s red pickup truck, which Stites reportedly took to work the morning she was killed, was found parked down the road from her body, leading investigators to suspect that she was transported in the truck. State investigators found only Stites’ and Fennell’s fingerprints in the truck. In 2001, Reed found in his case file a previously unnoticed lab report filed by the state during his trial, which the prosecution failed to share with his defense team. The report states that DNA found on a beer can at the crime scene matched Stites and two Bastrop police officers. One of those police officers was Ed Samela, appointed lead detective for the case. Three months after Samela began investigating the case, he was found dead from a gunshot wound to his head. The death was ruled suicide. None of this, however, has yet won Reed a new trial. RIGGING UP A REEF On July 11, the U.S. House passed with little fanfare the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act. The legislation mainly deals with expanded offshore oil drilling. But what to do with offshore platforms once they run dry? Don’t call them wrecks; call them artificial reefs. Tucked away in the bill is the greensounding “rigs-to-reefs” amendment. The rider will allow oil companies to rename their rigs as artificial reefs and leave them where they are instead of removing them and cleaning up after themselves. The federal Mineral Management Service, which will oversee this process, maintains that rigs provide homes to sea life, noting a “profound and pervasive connection between fish, fishing, and oil and gas structures in the marine environment.” But Zach Corrigan, staff attorney for FOR SALE/ LEASE WICHITA FALLS COMMERCIAL BUILDING 30,600 sq. ft. with 7000 sq. ft. of office space NEW ROOF & 2 HIGH LOADING DOCKS GREAT LOCATION PERFECT LAYOUT FOR OFFICE SPACE & WORK AREA GREAT SHAPE WILL LEASE FOR $1500 PER MONTH 85% SELLER FINANCING FOR PURCHASE Dennis Holohaugh 940-704-5871 JULY 28, 2006 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 25