04:44 AM CDT on Tuesday, May 6, 2008

By EMILY RAMSHAW / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Jurors sentenced Rodney Reed to death after DNA evidence showed he'd had sex with 19-year-old Stacy Stites, found strangled in the brush off a remote country road.
Rodney Reed

But a decade since Mr. Reed, who is black, first proclaimed his innocence, the case that rocked the small Central Texas town of Bastrop remains on appeal – amplified by an online movement to free Mr. Reed and continued scrutiny of Texas' use of the death penalty in racially charged cases.

While Mr. Reed sits on death row, his attorneys are standing by his theory: that he was having a secret, interracial affair with Ms. Stites and that Ms. Stites' police officer fiancé found out and killed her.

And they're arguing that Mr. Reed's trial was botched from the get-go – from sloppy police work and lack of legal counsel to a dearth of evidence linking Mr. Reed to the murder. No blacks were chosen for Mr. Reed's jury.

Read the entire article HERE.