By Kevin Cooper in 2015 Still Relevant today (December 2019)
(Original recording can be found here: https://www.prisonradio.org/media/audio/kevin-cooper/real-justice-not-cowboy-justice-rodney-reed-255-kevin-cooper)
Mr. Rodney Reed who is an innocent African American man on death row in the state of Texas is in the fight of his life, for his life. He and his family are doing something within a state that has a proven historical record of the fact that it cannot and for the most part has never been fair to him in this judicial system.
Since its founding the state of Texas has been shown that it cannot on its own be fair to all its citizens especially its poor minority citizens, and now must be forced to do so in a tortured case of Rodney Reed.
Texas loves to hand out cowboy justice which in fact is no justice at all. We want and demand that this cowboy mentality be set aside so that Mr. Rodney Reed and his family can once and for all achieve real justice within this case because it is screaming out for real justice.
How can the state of Texas honestly claim to be correct in the case of Mr. Rodney Reed when there is so much evidence that not only undercuts and undermines all the state is seeing and saying but also helps to prove all what Mr. Rodney Reed and his family, attorneys and supporters are saying?
How can the state of Texas claim to be so right in any case, especially this one, when history has proven the fact that they have been wrong in so many other cases in the past and have in fact executed innocent people. Many of those cases had less evidence supporting those people than Mr. Rodney Reed has within this case.
America as a whole and Texas especially manage inhumanity very well. Just as long as it is kept isolated to the poor minorities and kept away from its middle-upper classes within its state and within this country. This is why besides its arrogance why the state of Texas feels so comfortable denying Mr. Rodney Reed not only his constitutional rights, but also his day in court as well as his universal right to life.
All Mr. Rodney Reed is asking for is what those so-called founding fathers said we citizens of this country are entitled to have, which is this: a fair trial and a trial free from governmental interference. None of which Rodney Reed has had in this case in Texas.
It is way past time for Texas to do the right thing in the case of Mr. Reed. We are here to say to them and to all that need to be told, that despite the historical and ongoing mind-set of certain people in power the lives of black people do have value within this world, country and state of Texas. Especially that of Mr. Rodney Reed.
In struggle and solidarity from death row at San Quentin Prison, I’m Kevin Cooper.