Paul House, a Tennessee death row inmate who has been excluded through DNA testing remains in limbo on the state's death row. The Knoxville News Sentinel has, "Judge will rule later on freedom for death row inmate House."
wheelchair-bound death row inmate must wait a while longer before a federal judge decides whether to set him free pending a decision by prosecutors to retry him.
U.S. District Judge Harry “Sandy” Mattice listened to arguments today from an assistant state attorney general that Paul Gregory House is a flight risk and should not be loosed until the state retries him.
In December, Mattice threatened to vacate House’s conviction and death sentence if the state did not retry House within 180 days. The state appealed.
Today he told Associate Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Smith it’s time to decide the issue.
“Let me say this, Miss Smith, do what you got to do but let’s do it quickly,” Mattice said. “I think it’s time to go ahead and decide, let’s retry Mr. House or do what we’re gonna do.”
He also questioned the state’s contention that House is a flight risk.
And:
Mattice gave the state and House’s attorneys until March 10 to file additional arguments. He said he would issue a written ruling afterwards.
The state contends House is a dangerous pervert whose death sentence is a powerful reason to run should he be set free pending future court wrangling in a case that has now spanned decades.
House’s defense team counters the 46-year-old Tennessee inmate won’t run. He cannot even walk, confined to a wheelchair because of multiple sclerosis.
Those arguments set the stage for today’s hearing in what has been a landmark judicial odyssey from the Union County Courthouse to the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., and now to Mattice.
House is on death row for the July 1985 slaying of Carolyn Muncey, a 29-year-old Union County housewife and mother.
Prosecutors contended that House, a paroled rapist, lured Muncey from her home to rape her and killed her when she tried to fend him off. Her body was found less than 100 yards from her home, hidden down an embankment. She had been choked and beaten. A blow to the head killed her.
Seventeen years after House was convicted, a DNA test showed that semen stains found on Muncey’s underwear and gown belonged not to House but to her husband, who House had claimed at trial was the real killer.
By then, however, House had exhausted his appeals. Assistant Federal Defenders Steve Kissinger and Dana Hansen launched a bid to get House one more chance at an appeal, using a legal claim of “actual innocence.”
Their proof of innocence included the DNA test results, testimony of possible evidence tampering and witnesses who claimed Muncey’s husband confessed to killing her.
The case eventually landed before the nation’s most powerful court, which opined that House had indeed mounted proof he was innocent and ordered a new look by the U.S. District Court of Eastern Tennessee.
In December, Mattice did just that, finding that House’s constitutional rights had been violated. He threatened to vacate House’s conviction and death sentence if the state did not retry House within 180 days. The state appealed. House’s defense team now is asking Mattice to set House free pending the outcome of that appeal.
House's case is one of those covered in Capital Punishment Stories, a book to be published and the subject of a symposium at UT Law held last year.
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