Zweifel an der Schuld eines zum Tode Verurteilten

In 2012, a US magistrate judge recommended after reviewing the case that Rodney Reed’s habeas corpus petition, which had been pending before him for 10 years while other litigation was in train, be denied by the US District Court, which then did so. The magistrate judge wrote: "Reed was never a suspect. Never, that is, until the sperm found in Stacey Stites body was discovered to be a match to Reed’s DNA… Without reliable evidence demonstrating that this happened consensually, the DNA evidence effectively condemns Reed". The new expert forensic evidence would appear to call the magistrate judge’s recommendation into serious question. UN safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty state: "Capital punishment may be imposed only when the guilt of the person charged is based upon clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts". The new expert opinion of the three forensic pathologists, coupled with post-conviction clarification by the state’s forensic expert of his the trial testimony, and the additional statements from the victim’s co-workers, open "room for an alternative explanation of the facts".

The new evidence is currently pending before the Texas courts. There is also a petition for clemency pending before the Governor and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. The governor cannot commute a death sentence without a recommendation to do so from the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, but can issue a temporary reprieve.

Numerous relatives of Stacey Stites have written to Governor Abbott to ask for clemency. For example, an uncle has written: "It is important that justice be done for her murder, but I do not believe that Rodney Reed is guilty and I believe that her murderer has yet to face prosecution for this terrible crime". A cousin has written: "I and other members of my family do not believe that justice has been served for Stacey. It is our belief that Rodney Reed did not murder Stacey". Another cousin has written on behalf of herself and other named family members: "There can be no closure for our family with the wrongful execution of Rodney Reed". Yet another cousin has written: "My family will not be at peace or comforted by the capital sentence and execution of Rodney Reed. I am sure you do not wish to execute an innocent man".

Eight retired state and federal judges filed a brief in 2014 in the US Supreme Court expressing "serious concern" that the Fifth Circuit had "deprived Reed of the opportunity to develop the facts needed to prove his ineffective assistance of counsel claims".

On 17 February 2015, outgoing US Attorney General Eric Holder said that the justice system "is comprised of men and women who do the best they can, get it right more often than not… But there’s always the possibility that mistakes will be made". He pointed out that "there is no ability to correct a mistake where somebody has in fact been executed. And that is from my perspective the ultimate nightmare". Four days earlier, the governor of Pennsylvania announced a moratorium on executions in that state, as had the governors of Oregon and Washington State in recent years. The Pennsylvania governor noted that the capital justice system was "anything but infallible" and that his state accounted for six of the 150 cases of death row inmates in the USA since 1973 found to have been wrongfully convicted. Texas accounts for 12 of the 150 cases.

Texas also accounts for 521 of the 1,402 executions in the USA since the US Supreme Court approved revised capital statutes in 1976. There have been eight executions in the USA so far this year, three of them in Texas. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally.