BASTROP COUNTY, Texas — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will not rehear a motion from Rodney Reed’s team to remove the latest judge presiding over his death penalty case.
On Wednesday, the court issued a ruling to Reed: “This is to advise that the applicant’s suggestion for reconsideration has been denied without written order.”
Reed’s legal team had been awaiting a response to a Nov. 22 motion to excise a line from the court’s Nov. 15 stay of execution, which also left Judge Doug Shaver on the case.
“If Judge Shaver chooses to discontinue his assignment in this case, then the regional presiding judge, the Hon. Olen Underwood, shall appoint or otherwise determine who is assigned to this case,” the court said on Nov. 15.
RELATED: Rodney Reed case assigned new judge
Retired District Court Judge Shaver was appointed for one day to the case in 2014 after Reed’s legal team argued there was a conflict of interest with the trial judge at the time, Reva Towslee-Corbett.
Towslee-Corbett’s father, Harold Towslee, was Reed’s trial judge in his 1998 conviction for the murder of Stacey Stites.
Shaver later signed Reed’s July 23, 2019 execution order.
After the stay of execution, Reed’s case was handed over from Shaver to retired District Court Judge J.D. Langley. Retired judges are used in cases where counties are experiencing a backlog.
But Reed’s attorney said Bastrop County’s Judge Carson Campbell should be the presiding judge in the case – a motion the appeals court denied.
No further hearing dates have been set in Reed’s case, which will happen in Bastrop County.
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