Rihanna, T.I., Busta Rhymes, Meek Mill, Questlove and a number of other prominent hip-hop and R&B acts have taken to Twitter to urge the state of Texas to halt the planned execution this month of Rodney Reed in light of new evidence in the death row inmate's case. Reed, who has spent more than two decades on death row for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites in Texas, is slated to be executed on Nov. 20.
According to CNN, a former prison inmate (Arthur Snow Jr.) has claimed in an affidavit that someone else, Stites' fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, confessed to the murder several years ago. Reed, who is black, was convicted by an all-white jury of sexually assaulting and murdering Stites, a 19-year-old white woman, who was engaged at the time to local police officer Fennell.