Rodney Reed v. Texas

No. 1 At Rodney Reed’s capital murder trial, the victim’s fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, was a key witness for the prosecution. Years later, Reed discovered that Fennell (a prime suspect in the murder) made a prior inconsistent statement to a sheriff’s officer about his activities the night of the murder. Fennell was subpoenaed to testify at a state habeas hearing on Reed’s claim that the inconsistent statement was suppressed in violation of Brady v. Maryland. At the hearing, Fennell invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege and refused to testify, preventing Reed from confronting a key trial witness about the suppressed exculpatory evidence. In denying Reed’s Brady claim, the Texas courts made no mention of Fennell’s appearance at the hearing or his invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege and refusal to testify. The first question presented is: When assessing under the Brady materiality standard whether “disclosure of the suppressed evidence to competent counsel would have made a different result reasonably probable,”1 how should a court consider the impact of a key trial witness’s assertion of the privilege against self-incrimination and refusal to testify when confronted with the suppressed exculpatory evidence? 1 Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 441 (1995).