Rep. Michael McCaulMichael Thomas McCaulTexas GOP congressman calls on governor to postpone execution of Rodney Reed House Republicans add Hunter Biden, whistleblower to impeachment hearing witness wish list Trump: Whistleblower ‘must come forward’ MORE (R-Texas), in a letter Wednesday, called on Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to postpone the planned execution of Rodney Reed for a 1996 murder until potentially exculpatory evidence can be reviewed.
Reed has been on death row in Texas since 1998 after his conviction for the rape and murder of Stacey Stites. Although Reed’s DNA was found in Stites’s body, Reed has claimed they were having a consensual affair.
ADVERTISEMENT
In an application for clemency, Reed’s attorneys wrote that new evidence has “contradicted and, in all key respects, affirmatively disproven, every aspect of the State’s expert-based case against Mr. Reed” and implicates Stites’s fiancé.
“As the member of Congress representing the Bastrop community where this crime took place, I have heard from many of my constituents about evidentiary gaps in Mr. Reed’s case,” McCaul wrote. “In reviewing the case, and the press reporting around these evidentiary gaps, new witness statements and forensic evidence could potentially change the outcome of the case.”
“A death sentence is final, and given the doubt surrounding his innocence at this time, I believe our state cannot execute Mr. Reed in good conscience without fully reviewing all evidence,” McCaul added.
Click Here: st kilda saints guernsey 2019
McCaul is the second Texas Republican to call for a review of the evidence in Reed’s case this week. Sen. Ted CruzRafael (Ted) Edward CruzWarren goes local in race to build 2020 movement Trump holds chummy meeting with Turkey’s Erdoğan Overnight Defense: Trump hosts Erdoğan at White House | Says Turkish leader has ‘great relationship with the Kurds’ | Highlights from first public impeachment hearing MORE on Monday said there have been “meaningful and serious questions raised, calling into question his guilt or his innocence.”
“If there’s a real question of innocence, the system needs to stop and look at the evidence because an innocent man should be set free,” Cruz added.