In 2007, Reed issued a report finding that Ruben Cantu was guilty of the crime for which Texas executed him in 1993. However, critics say the report is compromised by the fact Reed was the judge who rejected Cantu's appeal in 1988 and set his execution date in 1993. Reed assigned to the Cantu case two investigators, Mike Beers and James Moore, who allegedly were recorded ridiculing the case in a phone conversation and openly mocking the notion that Cantu might have been innocent.