Rodney Reed pleads before U.S. Supreme Court for DNA testing that might establish his innocence

Family members of Rodney Reed, center, join hands as they pray during a rally at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 11, 2022. The court heard oral arguments for a claim seeking DNA testing of crime scene evidence after Reed was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites in Bastrop. (Credit: Eric Lee for The Texas Tribune)

Rodney Reed has been sitting on death row at Texas’ infamous Polunsky Unit for more than two decades, convicted of abducting, raping and murdering 19-year-old Stacey Stites as she drove to her early morning shift at HEB.

Reed has maintained his innocence all that time, and his lawyers have argued repeatedly that there might be a way to prove it: testing crime scene evidence that was never checked for DNA, including the murder weapon itself, a woven leather belt used to strangle Stites.