April | 2015 | Free Rodney Reed!

Rodrick Reed, brother of Rodney, spoke to a University of Texas at Austin students last night.

“A lot of people have relaxed, thinking he’s on his way home, but we still have to fight,” Rodrick said. “My brother is still locked up, and the fight must continue until we bring him home, and even after that, we still must fight for justice.”

“Without the public, my brother wouldn’t have stood a chance,” Rodrick said. “They would have probably executed him on March 5. [Rodney said to me,] ‘I’ve lost both my grandmothers in [jail.] Now I’ve lost my dad, and I’ve lost several uncles, and my family is going away, but I have not lost hope.’”

Rodrick was joined by Ben Wolff of the Texas Defender Service and Ana Hernandez of the UT chapter of Amnesty International. “Here’s the urgency about this: No one’s won,” Wolff said. “Rodney’s still on death row, and he’s still there unjustly and an innocent man. The first time the state of Texas seeks to execute someone, they have to give at least 90 days’ notice. The second time, … 30 days.”

Hernandez added “I think that stressing the indignity of his current situation and the fact that it is unjust for an innocent person to face those circumstances for over 18 years — I think that finding a way to convey that kind of urgency is important. There is no end date for your activism.”

The panel followed a die-in hosted a few days earlier in one of the University’s busy pedestrian areas. The die-in highlighted Rodney’s case but also the oppressive conditions of Texas death row. A 6 foot by 10 foot area was marked off on the ground, representing the size of a death row cell. Demonstrators lay down on the pavement for 10 minutes with signs about Rodney and the racist application of the death penalty.

Students at the University of Texas at Austin will hold a die-in on Thursday, April 23, to show their continued support of death row prisoner Rodney Reed. The students will table in the hour leading up to the die-in, which starts at 12:15 pm. The event will include a replica of the floor plan of cells on Texas death row to highlight the harsh conditions of death row, as profiled in this report by the ACLU. Texas has some of the most restrictive policies in the nation, with prisoners held in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day, in tiny cells with one small window, no television, no air conditioning, and no contact visits. No prisoners should live in this way, especially not an innocent man like Rodney. Although grateful for his stay of execution, activists say Rodney shouldn’t spend one more day in his 6′ x 10′ cage. More information about the students’ die-in is available on Facebook.

You can see inside the Polunsky Unit, home to Texas death row, courtesy of this blog post at Minutes Before Six. The pictures were obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request and annotated by a Texas death row prisoner.

A panel discussion on Rodney, featuring Rodney’s brother Rodrick Reed and UT Amnesty International Vice President Ana Hernandez, will take place at UT on Monday, April 27 at 7:00 pm. Details are available here.

The Campus Coordinating Committee to Free Rodney Reed has hosted many actions on UT campus over the past several months, including a flash mob, collecting Valentines for prisoners, and an all-night vigil. Email cpoirot@utexas.edu for more info.