This case is upon black and white, meaning court transcribe, along with being upon television camera for my lawyer at the S.C. appellate defense 1122 Lady St. Suite 940 Columbia S.C. 29201-3243 Joseph L. Savitz trial transcribes.   News channel 2 NBC (843) 884-2288, Mrs. Jill Ford I gave her a one hour and thirty minute interview before trial, plus a thick folder of all the state paperwork, with all the covering the full trial in court camera, for I was my own lawyer within this death penalty case/trial.  News channel 4 ABC (843) 881-4444  covered the full trial only in court camera.  News channel 5 CBS (843) 577-6397 Ben Mankiewicz, I gave him a one hour and 45 minutes interview along with a thick folder with all the evidence, plus other state paperwork, along with on camera all the pictures of the crime.  I didn’t every hide, nor hold back anything from anyone!

The big issue within this death penalty case/trial, was that I would be representing myself which I have come to find out this hasn’t been done, until I became the first! Within this state, and was told perhaps within any other state!  I didn’t become my own lawyer for no type of fame nor glory! Yet to save my life period!  I had the head public defender of Charleston S.C. Ashley Pennington, for his trial strategy was call reconciliation, that’s it!  Not to do a effective cross-examination, to whittle down the adversary’s state
evidence, which all the state evidence help’s me!  So I fired both lawyers, and took my own case not knowing the law well enough to handle a death penalty trial as such, just the truth and knowing this truth it carried me through the 7 day trial without stopping it to teach me anything!

People in trouble, have the tendency to make themselves look and sound right, or like they haven’t done anything, and people are messing with them because of some reason or another!  I ensure you along with everyone else this isn’t the of James E. Reed!  I don’t want you nor anyone else to believe me at all!  Yet get the court transcribes, compare the 3 witnesses testimony
to their statements, study the sled evidence analysis along with what each agent said upon the stand (this isn’t, this don’t belong to James E. Reed)! Call news channel 2 NBC, 4 ABC, or 5CBS and get both interviews before trial.  All 3 covered the trial in court.  Get each videotape than you can make up your own determination whether to help me!  At least do that, for what do you have
to Lose?  I have my life to lose!!
 
I wrote along with putting together a book of over 700 pages, which is called “The defense speaks”!  It covers 12 years of my life before arrest, 2 years of waiting for trial within Charleston Detention Center here in S.C., the full 7 day trial, Broad River death row, Lieber Corr. Inst. Death Row, with all types of state paperwork, evidence all not to hid anything from anyone!

I was arrested in May 1994, and went to trial in June 2-9, 1996.  Where I took my own case to fight the way, I needed my lawyers to have just have each state expert sled agent, say exactly what is on her or his DNA forensic laboratories question document!  That’s it!  Not to hide anything, not play buddy buddy with the solicitor/DA, and act like you are fighting for me!   Yet you aren’t!
 
Here are the SLED forensic laboratory report DNA analysis:
 
19.       Porch step 1     Human blood – Insufficient
20.       Porch step 2     Human blood – Insufficient
21.       Porch step 3     Human blood – Insufficient
22.       Porch step 4     Human blood – Insufficient
37.       Vehicle – Brake pedal              No blood identified
38.       Vehicle – Driver’s side              No blood identified
39.       Vehicle – Gas pedal                  No blood identified
83.       Suspect’s clothing                     No blood identified
23.       Human Blood – Carpet in den   Don’t match any of the standards submitted –
           none of the individuals could be the contributor of this blood.
           Neither victim nor James Reed (blood next to victim body).
24.      Human Blood – Carpet in den   Insufficient

                                      Latent Print

44.    Cast of footwear impression   Could have made or any like manufacture shoe
45.    Cast of footwear impression   Could have made or any like manufacture shoe
46.    Cast of footwear impression   Could have made or any like manufacture shoe
47-54.  8 finger prints from gun magazine           Insufficient
59-63.  5 finger prints from phone                     Insufficient
64-77   14 finger prints from victims car             Insufficient

                                    Firearms

Gun used 9 mm       Don’t have a gun yet it could have been any 9 mm luger caliber

                                     Trace

40.       Head hair         Inconsistent with subject
43.       Head hair         Inconsistent with subject
55.       No gunshot residue found
57.       Samples from the hands of James Reed insufficient to determine gunshot residue.

                                Miranda Rights

Witnesses      Only one police officer sign when it takes both Partners.
One backing up the other one.  Plus on the stand the officer stated that 2 officers must sign.

                               3 State Witnesses

3 State Witnesses Said they seen a man run in and out of the victim’s house into the woods.  Than during the trial upon the stand they said saw James Reed.  Plus James Reed was driving the victim after the shooting and stop to have a conversation with them.  I gave each of the 3 state witnesses their statements, and ask each one to show me where it says I saw James Reed.  None of them could!!  I ask each one to identify James Reed glasses, shirt, pants, tennis shoes or sneakers, neither one could identify anything, plus to compare each of their statements to their testimony you are able to see and hear them lying!
All of this came out during the trial, which it took the Jury 2 hours and 45 minutes of deliberation to come back with a decision.  Which the other lawyers were looking for a quicker decision! Now, no one ever believed that this case wouldn’t receive a full new trial, or receive a dismissal of the case!  Yet the S.C. Supreme Court turn me/my case down. I feel along with knowing that it was turned down by using the 4 P’s!  Instead of the law and common sense!  The 4 P’s are Prejudice, Politics, Power, People to keep me down/this case down is to put fear within any other inmate, that may want to represent themselves.  By stating you see what happen to James Earl Reed, representing himself the stare killed him, that will put fear within that inmate heart to keep that lawyer, and back down from his fight to use me/my case to keep it down so that no other inmate may wish to represent himself or herself, and to keep that lawyer, and that lawyer knowing that there’s no evidence his client!  Yet his client may receive 12 years – a life sentence or plea!  I have seen this during the 2 years awaiting trial! Please like I have stated.  I don’t want you to believe me nor need you to believe me!  Please check this out.  Than make up your own determination.  Base upon what you lay your hands, your eyes  upon.  If you do this I know you would write to help me save my life!!
 
                            “I do need your help urgently”

                                            Thank you for your time!
 
                      James E. Reed 5041
                         Lieber Corr. Inst.
                         Box 205 Cell 247
                    Ridgeville S.C.   29472 

When his ex-girlfriend's parents refused to tell him her whereabouts, he methodically shot them dead, firing at the mother once in each leg, once in the lower body and once between the eyes at point- blank range.

When he insisted on defending himself in his double-murder trial, despite pleas from defense attorneys that he had an IQ of 77 and was not competent to stand trial, he became the first person under the state's current capital punishment law to represent himself.

After a jury deliberated just 30 minutes to convict him of those murders, Reed reversed himself and asked for a postponement in the sentencing phase and pleaded for a lawyer to help spare his life. He got the postponement.

Now, nine years after the slayings of Joseph and Barbara Ann Lafayette in their Adams Run home, Reed has resurfaced from Death Row at Lieber Correctional Institution with another odd demand: He wants to be executed rather than continue with further appeals.

"I am standing upon my word that this case be dismiss [sic] or I be killed," Reed, 44, wrote in a letter to The Associated Press last week. He added that he has also decided against asking the governor for clemency, eating a final meal or making a last statement.

All of this sounds familiar to former 9th Circuit Solicitor David Schwacke. In television interviews before his trial, Reed ventured that if Schwacke could convict him and get the death sentence, then Reed would let Schwacke tie him to a tree and shoot him dead.

"This is pretty consistent with what he did at the trial stage, making the case personal," Schwacke said Monday. "Might just be the last act of a desperate man."

No motions have been filed pertaining to his request, said Assistant Public Defender Fielding Pringle of Richland County. She said Reed's request comes after his latest appeal for post-conviction relief was denied in a Richland County court. Reed has at least four more courts in which he could appeal his death sentence, said Pringle, including the South Carolina Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Fourth Circuit and the Federal District Court. She said she talks with him regularly, but declined to say whether he has changed his mind.

"His competency has been hotly disputed since Day 1," Pringle said Monday. "It is in the court transcript that he has an IQ of 77 and suffers from neurological impairment."

An IQ of 75 is considered the low end of normal, Pringle said.

"It is a very sad story. He should never have been allowed to represent himself in the first place. It is very sad."

The Lafayette family could not be reached for comment Monday. At trial, prosecutors said Reed and the Lafayettes' daughter, Laurie Rego, briefly dated while they were both in the Army. Rego testified that when she tried to break off the relationship and fled her own apartment to get away from him, he rammed a car into an Army officer who was trying to help her. Reed was sentenced to 37 months in prison after pleading guilty to assault, but he continued to write Rego threatening letters from prison.

When Reed was released from prison on April 25, 1994, instead of going to a federal halfway house in Fayetteville, N.C., to complete his sentence, he went to Greenville and bought a 9 mm pistol and 10 bullets. On May 18, Reed showed up at the Lafayettes' house looking for Rego.

For Reed to be executed voluntarily, he must be found competent by a judge. Five years ago, the state Supreme Court upheld Reed's conviction after considering whether Circuit Judge William Howard had erred by finding Reed competent and capable of representing himself. The high court held that the judge had made clear to Reed the inherent dangers in self- representation.

Assistant Deputy Attorney General Don Zelenka was on vacation Monday and unavailable for comment, and his department's spokesmen, Trey Walker, said he was unaware of Reed's expressed intentions to volunteer for execution.

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