Overview

• The US Supreme Court overturned a lower court's ruling that prevented Rodney Reed from seeking DNA testing of crime scene evidence in his case.
• Reed, a Black man, was sentenced to death in 1998 for the murder of Stacey Stites, though he has long maintained his innocence and claims Stites' fiance was the real killer.
• Reed sought to test key pieces of evidence from the crime scene, including the belt used to strangle Stites, for DNA.
• His lawyers and supporters argue that evidence found since his trial implicates Stites' fiance, a former police officer, as the true killer.
• The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in 2021 that Reed should have filed his lawsuit within two years of the original denial of DNA testing in 2014.