02/25/15 – Jordan Smith – The Scott Horton Show

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And now I think I'll take the risk of going ahead and going to our guest on the line.
Jordan, are you there?
I am.
I'm here.
Okay.
Very good.
Thank you.
I'm sorry about the time zone confusion.
All of my fault and not yours at all.
Not a problem.
I appreciate you making time for us.
So Jordan Smith, everybody, for years and years did a great investigative journalism for the Austin Chronicle, all of which you can read online, I believe.
And also, and then now she's writing for The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald and them at The Intercept.
And for years, she's covered the case of Rodney Reed, who, well, let's just say there's pretty obvious reasonable doubt as to whether he's guilty of the murder of a woman named Stacey Stites.
And we talked with Jordan just a week or two ago on the show about all of that.
But the recent news is that Rodney Reed has been granted a stay of execution.
Is that right, Jordan?
That's correct.
He has.
And for how long is that?
Well, it's in an indeterminate period of time.
The court acted on it late Monday, responding to the appeal that we talked about last time, which kind of raises this specter that the state's timeline for Stites' death has been off the whole time and that there's now scientific evidence to prove it.
And so they granted the stay and that just kind of, there's no timeline for them to rule now that that death is not on the table and with a date certain.
So it's up to them basically how quickly or not that they proceed.
Right.
And then, so was there a comment from the judge or judges or whatever in the decision?
Was there anything important there?
No, there was no comment.
They just kind of gave a little procedural history, very dry order.
But a couple of interesting things, I suppose.
One is the breakdown of the court.
Six judges, I think, voted in favor.
Two did not.
And among those that voted to just keep the execution date as it is, is the presiding judge of the court, Sharon Keller, who you may know as Sharon Killer Killer, because she is very wedded to finality over truth, I think may be the nicest way to put it.
You know what?
It's interesting you say that.
I was just telling a friend the other day from memory a story about a case here in Texas where the judge actually went so far as to say that finality of the court's decision is the paramount concern rather than justice for someone who is falsely convicted.
Was that her?
Is that what I was thinking of?
Well, you may have been.
I don't know.
I would not be surprised if she'd said that off the top of my head.
I can't remember.
But if she did, however, I'm certain that she would.
I mean, she's kind of notorious for kind of closing the courthouse door here in 2007 and sort of allowing an execution to go through while there was basically still a question, there was still a case pending at the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court had basically said, the Supreme Court of the United States had said, hey, we're going to review the legality of using a three drug cocktail to execute people.
And while that case was pending, there was kind of a sort of de facto moratorium going on.
And so there was a guy named Michael Rashard who was supposed to be executed right after the court agreed to hear that case.
And so his lawyers were scrambling and trying to ask the court here to sort of block his execution until that issue of how lethal injection is administered could be handled.
And Keller basically, I mean, it just all happened very quickly.
And so they got the appeal to the court here, you know, like just around five o'clock.
And she basically, you know, put the word out that the petition should be refused because it was after five and the court closed at five.
She was ended up reprimanding, reprimanded for that.
But that's about it.
You know, it's that that's kind of, you know, a little bit of her reputation kind of distilled right there for you.
Right.
So she would have allowed Reed to be executed when we know that there's serious questions, you know, about his guilt.
So I think that tells you all you need to know, really.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, that's amazing that it wasn't unanimous.
But so now it's I'm sorry, did I hear you right at the beginning there?
It's been kicked down to the lower court now to decide on what a new trial or.
No.
So they haven't decided yet.
The court will.
The court will appeal, which is the one that stayed the execution.
They'll basically tell the lawyers what happens next.
Right.
So they'll either look at this appeal and consider it on their own and say, there's nothing here or.
Yeah, there's a lot here.
And we think we deserve relief or they can say, hey, we think there's an issue here that needs to be worked out.
And so we're going to kick it back to the trial court to have it like an evidentiary hearing with live witnesses, you know, and it seems like that that might be likely because we have, you know, a lot of forensic pathologists here saying that the state's science at the time of trial was basically bogus and that, you know, that it was, I guess, junk essentially.
And so I think that they will probably want to hear from witnesses for and against that position because they don't really have the ability to listen to witnesses.
They just have the ability to kind of review the actions, you know, of lower courts and it's the lower courts that can hear those live witnesses.
So.
And they care a lot more about what a professional scientist says than what her friends at the grocery store say about what they know of the relationship, et cetera.
Right.
I mean, I don't know.
They haven't said yet.
You know, I mean, obviously this is very new.
We'll figure out what the court thinks is important with this appeal and what they might not think is important in some time in the next.
I mean, who knows?
It could take months.
It could take weeks.
It's just the court's very unpredictable in that way.
Obviously they, everybody else has, you know, lots of timelines in order to file and make sure things are accepted.
But when it gets to their level, it's really up to whenever they get around to it.
And, you know, frankly, there's been death cases, you know, where they have waited years to rule.
So who knows?
I think hopefully there's enough of this case is kind of in the public conscience now that they will be, you know, sort of put on notice that they can't just kind of dismiss this out of hand or sit on it for a really long time.
Right.
At least they got some more hurdles to cross before they kill this guy.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Well, and it's an amazing story.
And I'm sorry we don't have time to go back over it all or anything, but I'll encourage everyone to just type in Rodney Reed and Jordan Smith and go and check out what you find at the Austin Chronicle and also at The Intercept about this case where it's just a hundred ways from absurd, man.
Come on.
Well, hey, congratulations, Jordan, because, of course, I don't know, a number percentage or something, but, you know, the fact that there's a stay in his execution here is obviously in great part due to your journalism.
So that's very important that you've done that.
And I hope others have thanked you, too, because that's a nice thing to say.
I don't know if it had much to do with me.
Good lawyer and good advocacy, you know, people like you that try to help amplify the voices of the people who are concerned about this.
I think that's they all tie in together.
And I think that's really kind of the important thing.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, listen, thanks very much for all your work on this subject.
It's very important.
Thanks again for having me.
I appreciate it.
All right, y'all.
That's Jordan Smith, formerly at the Austin Chronicle.
Check out her archive there.
And now she's at The Intercept at firstlook.org or com or something slash The Intercept over there with Greenwald and Scahill and them.
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