Speaker 1: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 1: verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 2: It was absolute shambles, to tell you the truth, just
Speaker 2: absolutely really pallant blood on his clothing the day after
Speaker 2: the alleged.
Speaker 3: At Tophelle mud Bank and if bit through a river.
Speaker 1: Basically, I think most of the people are used to
Speaker 1: me are good people.
Speaker 3: I think a really important question we need to ask
Speaker 3: is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
Speaker 2: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pull back the
Speaker 2: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 2: our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm
Speaker 2: Amy Maguire and.
Speaker 3: I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner
Speaker 3: Support Service. And a warning, this series contains the names
Speaker 3: of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset
Speaker 3: some listeners.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Curtin the podcast. Now. At the very beginning
Speaker 2: of this podcast series told you a little bit about
Speaker 2: the case that got Martin interested in Kevin Henry's story,
Speaker 2: and it was a case that he'd been working on
Speaker 2: for over a decade and it wasn't in Australia. It
Speaker 2: was overseas in America, and it revolved around an African
Speaker 2: American man named Rodney Reed who was on death row
Speaker 2: for the murder of his girlfriend. Now, Martin, there have
Speaker 2: been updates in the case of Rodney Reid. Can you
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about what's currently happening over
Speaker 2: in America.
Speaker 1: So just quickly, before I get into the latest news
Speaker 1: on Rodney's case, I'll just remind everyone a few of
Speaker 1: the details about why Rodney is on death row in Texas.
Speaker 1: He was convicted of the nineteen ninety six murder of
Speaker 1: Stacy Stites in Texas. Rodney's an African American man and
Speaker 1: he was in a relationship with Stacy at the time.
Speaker 1: Just like Kevin, Rodney's always maintained his innocence. There's never
Speaker 1: been any witnesses or forensic links to Rodney and the crime,
Speaker 1: and just like Kevin, and all white jury found him guilty. Now,
Speaker 1: it took the police quite a while to piece that
Speaker 1: case together and to be able to point the finger
Speaker 1: at Rodney because there was just no evidence. And although
Speaker 1: Rodney was in a relationship with Stacy, she was actually
Speaker 1: engaged to a local white police officer. And as we've mentioned,
Speaker 1: before ten years after her death, that police officer was
Speaker 1: found guilty of rape and kidnap. So this was a
Speaker 1: dangerous individual and he was the first person placed under suspicion,
Speaker 1: and too we've always believed committed the crime. And I
Speaker 1: will get back to that a little bit more later on.
Speaker 1: So twenty years later, Rodney is still in prison on
Speaker 1: death row in Texas, and last week he was able
Speaker 1: to have a new hearing. Now it's not a new trial,
Speaker 1: it's not even an appeal. It's actually a hearing that
Speaker 1: was sent back to the original court, the Basop County
Speaker 1: Court where his first trial took place, and he was
Speaker 1: found guilty despite there being no evidence by that or
Speaker 1: white jury. And this new hearing is about working out
Speaker 1: where Stacy Stites, as then fiance, was that night. The
Speaker 1: reason this is taking place is because at the time
Speaker 1: of the trial and on the stand, the police officer
Speaker 1: her fiance, claimed he was with Stacy that whole night
Speaker 1: and she must have been murdered on her way to
Speaker 1: work the next morning, and a few of his friends
Speaker 1: who were also police officers, gave the same testimony. But
Speaker 1: then just recently a few years ago, in an interview
Speaker 1: on CNN, one of his colleagues, who also was an
Speaker 1: investigator on the case, said that the fiance wasn't with
Speaker 1: Stacy that night. He was actually at a bar with
Speaker 1: him drinking, and so he then said that he went
Speaker 1: home around eleven o'clock, meaning it's not possible to say
Speaker 1: that she couldn't have been killed during the night. His
Speaker 1: claim the fiancee was she had to have been killed
Speaker 1: in the morning on her way to work because she
Speaker 1: was with him all that night. So this hearing was
Speaker 1: purely to determine what the truth was. Was the this
Speaker 1: investigator who had previously said that the fiancee was at
Speaker 1: home all night telling the truth or was what he
Speaker 1: really said on CNN in the interview that he was
Speaker 1: at a bar watching baseball with him the truth? And
Speaker 1: last week, in this new hearing, this investigator, a fellow
Speaker 1: police officer, admitted it was true. The fiance was at
Speaker 1: the bar, he was drinking heavily, he watched the baseball,
Speaker 1: and then he went home at around eleven o'clock, meaning
Speaker 1: that it was more than possible that Stacy Stites had
Speaker 1: been murdered sometime that evening. And that's some of the
Speaker 1: forensic detail I'll get too later as well. But what
Speaker 1: this opened up is a new opportunity for Rodney that
Speaker 1: clearly perjury had been committed on the stand, and that eyewitness,
Speaker 1: that being Stacy's fiance, who was the one that was
Speaker 1: staying Stacy couldn't have been killed overnight, was lying.
Speaker 2: Now, Martin, there have been issues with the judges in
Speaker 2: Rodney's case. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 1: And that's right, there has been some issues about the judges,
Speaker 1: and it's quite unfortunate that I think people are under
Speaker 1: an illusion that the justice system doesn't get anything wrong,
Speaker 1: that the judges are always doing their best work, and
Speaker 1: that things are kept fair well. If ever, there was
Speaker 1: a case that shows that's not true. It's Rodney's. Now.
Speaker 1: The reason that Rodney was not able to be granted
Speaker 1: a new appeal and has only been granted this hearing
Speaker 1: back at the original county court is because at the
Speaker 1: start of the year and previously, this judge has also
Speaker 1: made rulings against Rodney. They said that there wasn't enough
Speaker 1: evidence for an appeal for Rodney. And why is there
Speaker 1: a problem with this judge, Well, because she's a Republican
Speaker 1: and so is her father, and her father was the
Speaker 1: original judge at Rodney's original trial. So if she sent
Speaker 1: this to appeal, and Rodney was proven innocent, as we
Speaker 1: believe he is, it would show that her own father,
Speaker 1: a judge, had made some serious mistakes at the original
Speaker 1: trial that, again we also believe to be true. Now,
Speaker 1: this is something that should never have happened. She should
Speaker 1: have recused herself. She shouldn't be sitting in judgment of
Speaker 1: her own father previous rulings. But that's not the worst
Speaker 1: of it. So not only has Rodney faced that, but
Speaker 1: this most current judge, who was sitting just last week
Speaker 1: in this new hearing for Rodney, is a judge that
Speaker 1: is quite well known in America because he sat on
Speaker 1: a hearing involving another death row inmate. And that death
Speaker 1: row inmate he was defended by a public defender, a
Speaker 1: seventy two year old alcoholic lawyer who urinated himself and
Speaker 1: fell asleep during the trial. Now, how on earth could
Speaker 1: he properly defend a man when he was clearly drunk
Speaker 1: and asleep. When this was brought to the judge's attention,
Speaker 1: this lawyer said that he was bored by the trial.
Speaker 1: Remembering this man, another black man, was on trial for
Speaker 1: his life, and the judge ruled that that was acceptable
Speaker 1: and that this man was receiving a proper and fair defense.
Speaker 1: This is the judge that is now ruling in Rodney's case. So,
Speaker 1: as you can see, Rodney has had a rough run
Speaker 1: with judges. He's had a father and daughter team working
Speaker 1: against him, and he's had a judge who thinks that
Speaker 1: a person who is drunk, asleep and can't even control
Speaker 1: their bladder is somehow effective counsel in a capital murder case.
Speaker 1: This is what nightmares are made of. And to think
Speaker 1: that this doesn't happen. Rodney Reid's case proves that it does.
Speaker 1: And you have to remember, despite there being no evidence,
Speaker 1: he's sat on death row for more than twenty years
Speaker 1: and he's come within hours of being executed.
Speaker 2: Now there are similarities, aren't there, between Rodney Reid and
Speaker 2: Kevin Henry's case. Now, in Kevin's case, new forensic analysis
Speaker 2: has completely contradicted the forensics given at Kevin's trial, and
Speaker 2: it seems to be the same in Rodney Reid's case,
Speaker 2: hasn't it, Martin? Can you take us through a little
Speaker 2: bit of that in the similarities between Kevin's case.
Speaker 1: Now, having said what I previously said about the judge
Speaker 1: who is currently sitting hearing this case at the moment
Speaker 1: in Bathrop County, who heard four days of testimony last
Speaker 1: week and has said he'll come back with a ruling
Speaker 1: in the next six to eight weeks, he did actually
Speaker 1: allow some things that were very positive for Rodney. And
Speaker 1: I think some of the reason why that happened is
Speaker 1: because it's just so obvious. And this goes to the
Speaker 1: issue of forensics and forensics and race. In both Kevin
Speaker 1: and Rodney's cases, the forensics never pointed to either Kevin
Speaker 1: or Rodney, and yet they were found guilty. Neither Rodney
Speaker 1: nor Kevin's DNA was linked to a murder. Both Rodney
Speaker 1: and Kevin were found guilty of rape, but neither woman
Speaker 1: had been raped. In fact, neither woman showed any sign
Speaker 1: of having sexual intercourse. You also have to remember no
Speaker 1: witnesses ever said that this had taken place, and there
Speaker 1: weren't any of the forensic markers you would look for,
Speaker 1: so immediately there is a problem. And one thing I
Speaker 1: want to say about this is that this is very
Speaker 1: very common in cases where where a black man is
Speaker 1: facing a murder charge, and that is that a rape
Speaker 1: charge is often added. Now why is it added despite
Speaker 1: in these two cases there being absolutely no evidence that
Speaker 1: sexual intercourse took place, let alone a rape. My take
Speaker 1: is this, it's because it makes the individual look worse
Speaker 1: to the jury. It makes them look like they're more
Speaker 1: of a monster. It means that, despite the prosecution's case
Speaker 1: clearly being very weak, it gives them a great deal
Speaker 1: more mud they can throw at both Kevin and Rodney
Speaker 1: and any individual facing a rape charge despite there being
Speaker 1: no evidence. It means that when they address the jury
Speaker 1: in both the opening and closing of the trial, they
Speaker 1: can talk about the defendant having raped the women that
Speaker 1: had died, and obviously this makes the man, the black man,
Speaker 1: look much worse. And we also have to remember that
Speaker 1: these were both in Rodney's case and Kevin's case or
Speaker 1: white juries. We have to remember that Kevin's case took
Speaker 1: place in the early nineties in rural Queensland and Rodney's
Speaker 1: case took place at the same time in rural Texas.
Speaker 1: These places are known for their racism. These places are
Speaker 1: known for that fear of black men roaming the streets.
Speaker 1: So if you can throw this mud at these two
Speaker 1: men despite there being absolutely no evidence of them even
Speaker 1: being there, let alone sexual intercourse or rape having taken place.
Speaker 1: Then I think it's part of what helps convict innocent men.
Speaker 1: Now if we go further into the forensics. As I
Speaker 1: said earlier, it was possible for Stacey Stites to have
Speaker 1: died earlier in the night because clearly her fiance, the
Speaker 1: police officer now in jail for kidnap and rape, lied
Speaker 1: on the stand. And so in Rodney's case, a new
Speaker 1: forensic pathologist has been brought on board, just as we've
Speaker 1: done with Kevin's case. But in Rodney's case, this is
Speaker 1: no ordinary forensic pathologist. His name is Michael Baden. He's
Speaker 1: perhaps the most famous forensic pathologist on earth. He's eighty
Speaker 1: three years old and has more experience than any other
Speaker 1: pathologist I'm aware of. He worked on the trial of
Speaker 1: OJ Simpson. He was brought in by a United States
Speaker 1: select committee to investigate the assassinations of JFK and Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King. He's performed the autopsies on many famous people
Speaker 1: right around the world, from royalty to government officials to
Speaker 1: famous people like the actor John Belushi and possibly most importantly,
Speaker 1: he worked on the case of Medgar Evers. Medgar Evers
Speaker 1: was a civil rights leader in the South in the
Speaker 1: sixties in the United States, and he was shot in
Speaker 1: the back by a klansman. He was coming home to
Speaker 1: his young family and his wife and he was murdered
Speaker 1: by that clansman in his driveway. Now, despite so much
Speaker 1: evidence pointing to this clansman's guilt, an all white jury
Speaker 1: found him not guilty. But Michael Baden, the forensic pathologist
Speaker 1: now working for Rodney Reid, helped pursue the case for
Speaker 1: thirty years and he developed the forensic techniques to prove
Speaker 1: beyond any possible doubt that this klansman had murdered the
Speaker 1: famous Medgar Evers, the great civil rights leader, and the
Speaker 1: klansman was finally found guilty more than thirty years later.
Speaker 1: So Michael Baden has now looked at the forensics of
Speaker 1: Rodney's case, and imagine this. He's proven that Stacy Stites
Speaker 1: did die long before she went to work. She died
Speaker 1: roughly thirty minutes after her fiance, the policeman, came home
Speaker 1: drunk from watching the baseball. He proved this using techniques
Speaker 1: that look at both rigor mortis, that is the stiffening
Speaker 1: and then relaxing of the muscles post death, and also
Speaker 1: what's known as lividity, and that's the way the blood
Speaker 1: flows and pulls in the body after death. And it
Speaker 1: helps to show any marks on the body where someone
Speaker 1: may have been dragged, manhandled, maybe they'd been put into
Speaker 1: a car boot. And in Rodney's case, what the lividity
Speaker 1: shows is something we'd long suspected that the fiancee had
Speaker 1: put Stacy Stynes in the footwell of his car, and
Speaker 1: the lividity, the pulling of the blood. These tests show
Speaker 1: the way her body was contorted to fit in a footwell,
Speaker 1: exactly the shape and size of the small truck that
Speaker 1: this police officer the fiance owned. Now here's another thing.
Speaker 1: That investigator that was there that night, who perjured himself
Speaker 1: and originally said that the fiance was at home, he
Speaker 1: helped the fiance get that truck back the next day.
Speaker 1: It was sold the day of Stacy Stites's death to
Speaker 1: a wrecker and was crushed, so no evidence was able
Speaker 1: to be collected. And as we've also previously spoken about,
Speaker 1: the police never went into Stacy Stites's home and looked
Speaker 1: to see if she'd been killed in her own home
Speaker 1: where she was living with this fiancee who came home drunk. Clearly,
Speaker 1: that's what the timeline now shows, and it further shows
Speaker 1: Rodney couldn't have committed the crime. Why because that time
Speaker 1: of death, Rodney was miles and miles away from the location,
Speaker 1: more than one hundred and twenty miles. So, in both
Speaker 1: Kevin's case and Rodney's case, not only do we have
Speaker 1: forensic evidence that shows at the very beginning that was
Speaker 1: conducted very early on in the case by the police,
Speaker 1: that they didn't commit this crime, the new evidence we've
Speaker 1: got in both Rodney's case and Kevin's case not only
Speaker 1: confirms that it helps further prove their innocence and show
Speaker 1: that their alibis match, and that it was not just unlikely,
Speaker 1: but impossible for Kevin and Rodney to have committed these
Speaker 1: crimes because they were nowhere near where these crimes took
Speaker 1: place at the time the crimes took place, and the
Speaker 1: murders didn't take place the way the police said they did.
Speaker 1: It's what the original forensic showed. And so why does
Speaker 1: this happen? Well, my opinion is this the police picked
Speaker 1: their man for a murder very early on. With both
Speaker 1: Kevin and Rodney, they were selected early because they were
Speaker 1: black men who were known to the victim. In Kevin's case,
Speaker 1: he barely knew Linda, he'd only met her once or twice.
Speaker 1: But as soon as they were picked up, the forensic
Speaker 1: pathologists working on these cases, whose work has now been
Speaker 1: completely discredited, tried to link the death in some way
Speaker 1: that would least help the police show that Kevin and
Speaker 1: Rodney were involved. They failed to do that. They tried
Speaker 1: their best to show that Linda had been put in
Speaker 1: on the Tanuba house side of the river when she hadn't,
Speaker 1: And in Rodney's case, they tried to show that Stacy
Speaker 1: Styez died in the morning on her way to work
Speaker 1: when she hadn't. And they did this to frame both
Speaker 1: Kevin and Rodney, and the new forensics, done with modern
Speaker 1: technology by independent people who were some of the best
Speaker 1: forensic pathologists in the world, clear Kevin and Rodney of
Speaker 1: any involvement. Why is it that two black men with
Speaker 1: absolutely no forensic connection to these cases have to wait
Speaker 1: a quarter of a century for the truth to come out.
Speaker 1: Why is it when the forensics are done when these
Speaker 1: women die, that it's done so appallingly. Don't the women
Speaker 1: Stacy and Linda deserve justice? Shouldn't every effort have been
Speaker 1: made to find out who really killed them, who committed
Speaker 1: these crimes, because we know Rodney and Kevin didn't do it,
Speaker 1: which means the real killers have been walking the streets well. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: in Rodney's case, the man we believe committed the crime
Speaker 1: her fiance, a police officer, ten years later, was finally caught.
Speaker 1: That's the good news. The bad news is it took
Speaker 1: him raping another woman and kidnapping another woman to be caught.
Speaker 1: This time. They couldn't throw the book at Rodney because
Speaker 1: Rodney was in prison for a crime they'd long since
Speaker 1: fitted him up. But despite this, Rodney is still in
Speaker 1: jail and the state of Texas is still trying to
Speaker 1: execute him. But what we're hoping is now that this
Speaker 1: new evidence has come forward that the investigator who originally
Speaker 1: lied has admitted no, the fiance was drinking and went
Speaker 1: home drunk after watching the baseball and the new forensic
Speaker 1: evidence showing that Stacy was killed not long after he
Speaker 1: would have arrived home and would have been placed in
Speaker 1: the footwell of his small track that this will finally
Speaker 1: allow for the release of Rodney. And in Kevin's case,
Speaker 1: this new forensic evidence just adds to all of the
Speaker 1: evidence that shows Kevin's absolute innocence, But it continues to
Speaker 1: remain a problem, a huge problem. Here we have two
Speaker 1: black men who have lost their lives to the prison system,
Speaker 1: nearly fifty years in total between the two because the
Speaker 1: forensics was done so appallingly, two women whose families have
Speaker 1: not known the truth, two women whose families have never
Speaker 1: believed the police got the right person. What does that
Speaker 1: tell you? When Linda's family has never believed that the
Speaker 1: right man was caught, do they get justice? Does Linda
Speaker 1: get justice? And why is Kevin? And why is Linda's
Speaker 1: family paying for what the police and sloppy forensic work
Speaker 1: is doing. But you might think this only happens in America.
Speaker 1: We see a lot about black lives matter in America,
Speaker 1: and we see a lot on TV about death row
Speaker 1: cases and exonerations. But this is happening in Australia too,
Speaker 1: and it's about to be exposed.
Speaker 2: And just to bring it back to Australia, it's a
Speaker 2: case you probably haven't heard of, but very similar to
Speaker 2: both the cases of Kevin Henry and Rodney Reid happening
Speaker 2: down in South Australia on Monday, and it revolves around
Speaker 2: an Aboriginal man named Derek Bromley who's been locked up
Speaker 2: for thirty four years for a crime that he says
Speaker 2: he did not do, and a lot of his appeal
Speaker 2: is based around the forensics at his trial, particularly centered
Speaker 2: around a very controversial forensic pathologist who didn't have formal
Speaker 2: qualifications at the time, and so that appeal will be
Speaker 2: going on on Monday. So watch out for that appeal
Speaker 2: because if Derek Bromley is exonerated next week, he'll be
Speaker 2: the longest serving exonerated prisoner in Australia's history. That was
Speaker 2: episode forty two of Curtain