Rihanna, Meek Mill, and Busta Rhymes have urged fans to petition Texas’ government to save a man on death row.
Rodney Reed is set to be executed on 20 November after spending more than two decades in jail for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites, but according to CNN, a former prison inmate named Arthur Snow, Jr. has claimed in an affidavit that Stites’s fiance confessed to the killing.
The Umbrella singer has now tweeted fans asking them to sign a petition calling for Reed to be freed.
“One Click!!! SIGN this petition if you don’t believe the Government should kill an innocent man!!!” she demanded.
Backing the Free Rodney Reed campaign on his own Twitter page, Meek, who has campaigned for justice reform after his own incarceration, wrote: “16 days left and he will be executed for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Busta added on Instagram: “I just signed the petition to stop the execution of #RODNEYREED @justice4rodneyreed Thank you (campaigning activist) @shaunking for shining such a bright light on this situation where this brother will be executed in the next 16 days for a crime that he did not commit. Please everyone we cannot let this happen.”
Questlove, T. I., Kim Kardashian, and LL Cool J have also used social media to highlight Reed’s case.
Reed, who is African-American, was convicted by an all-white jury of sexually assaulting and murdering Stites, a 19-year-old white woman who was engaged to Jimmy Fennell, then a Bastrop, Texas police officer.
Witnesses have subsequently come forward to claim that Reed was in a consensual relationship with Stites, and Fennell later served a 10-year prison term for a sex crime and kidnapping.
Snow, Jr., a former member of the Aryan Brotherhood white supremacist gang came forward last week, to claim his jailmate Fennell confessed to the murder.
The petition demanding Reed be freed already has more than 50,000 signatures.
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