More celebrities are joining Rihanna, Meek Mill and Kim Kardashian in urging Texas authorities to call off the Nov. 20 execution of Rodney Reed.
On Tuesday, rapper Pusha T and actor Seth Green encouraged their millions of social media followers to sign a petition calling for the stay of execution.
Reed, a 51-year-old black man, was convicted by an all-white jury in 1998 of raping and murdering Stacey Stites in 1996.
The Innocence Project filed an application for clemency last month, citing a murder confession allegedly made by Stites’ fiancé Jimmy Fennell while he was behind bars for a different crime.
“I feel that the truth is out there,” Reed recently told ABC News in a prison interview. “They’re going to be executing an innocent man.”
The growing group of bold-faced names has helped build awareness for the FreeRodneyReed.com online petition that topped a million signatures Tuesday.
The petition calls on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to stop Reed’s execution in light of “mountains of evidence” that could potentially exonerate him.
The petition claims Fennell has a history of violence against women and was convicted of kidnapping and sexual assault soon after Reed was sent to prison.
“Sign the petition to #FreeRodneyReed!! @GovAbbott stop the execution of an innocent man,” Pusha T said in his Twitter post Tuesday.
“Sometimes it feels impossible to make a difference — but here’s a chance to save an innocent man. Sign the petition and #FreeRodneyReed,” Green tweeted.
“One Click!! SIGN the petition if you don’t believe the Government should kill an innocent man!!!” Rihanna wrote in her own viral post Monday.
“PLEASE @GovAbbott How can you execute a man when since his trial, substantial evidence that would exonerate Rodney Reed has come forward and even implicates the other person of interest,” Kardashian wrote in a social media post Oct. 19.
“I URGE YOU TO DO THE RIGHT THING,” she said.
Reed’s lengthy appeals failed, but the Innocence Project later obtained a sworn affidavit by Aryan Brotherhood member Arthur Snow claiming Fennell privately confessed to killing Stites.
He said the conversation took place while both men were behind bars.
“Jimmy said his fiancé had been sleeping around with a black man behind his back. By the way Jimmy spoke about this experience, I could tell that it deeply angered him,” Snow says in the affidavit. “Toward the end of the conversation, Jimmy said confidently, ‘I had to kill my n — — r-loving fiance.’”
Prosecutors argued that DNA evidence proved Reed raped Stites, but Reed’s defense lawyers said Reed and Stites had a consensual relationship, which explained why his DNA matched semen found in her body, ABC News reported.
“We had a relationship,” Reed told ABC. “She wasn’t going to marry Jimmy … I don’t think she loved him.”
State prosecutor Lisa Tanner maintains Reed was rightfully convicted.
“I have spent more hours in my life in the last 22 years trying to figure out how Rodney Reed could’ve not killed Stacey Stites,” she told ABC News.
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