The Tennessean reports, "With son on death row, House's mom became his crusader," written by Chris Echegaray.
In a bedroom of a white ranch-style home, Joyce House, mother of death row inmate Paul Gregory House, has a touch lamp on a night table next to a bed.
One tap and the lamp lights up. It's easily reachable for a man who has multiple sclerosis. The bed is raised high enough for Joyce House to help maneuver her son, who uses a wheelchair.
couple of paintings hang on the bedroom wall, a television is near the foot of the bed, set up with a DVD player — a technological advancement Paul House doesn't know about.
The bedroom is like the rest of the house: quiet, simple and immaculate.
After he spent 20-plus years behind bars for a 1985 murder, Joyce House was expecting her son to come home when a U.S. Supreme Court decision said a jury should have heard testimony that might have exonerated him and after a U.S. district judge ordered him released pending a new trial. But she will have to wait a couple of more weeks.
Paul House is still in the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility in Nashville awaiting a May 28 hearing that will set the conditions of his release.
As Paul House prepares to go home, Union County District Attorney General William Paul Phillips says he is preparing to retry House. The courts have said the prosecutor has 180 days to begin.
Echegaray also reported the earlier article, "Decision to retry Paul House is assailed by his lawyer."
An East Tennessee district attorney's decision to retry death row inmate Paul House is "personal" and a waste of taxpayer money, House's federal public defender says.
Stephen Kissinger says he will ask a federal judge not to give prosecutors more time to try House again for the 1985 murder of a Union County woman.
Judge Harry Mattice Jr. ruled in December that the inmate should be released or retried based on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a jury should have heard testimony that might have exonerated House.
On Monday an appeal of the judge's ruling was rejected by a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Union County District Attorney General William Paul Phillips has 180 days from Monday to retry House, who has been in prison for more than 20 years. Phillips says he has enough evidence to try the case again and intends to handle the prosecution himself.
Kissinger said the trial would cost more than $100,000.
"You really have to be mystified, perplexed about that decision," he said. "It doesn't make sense. How can you justify that kind of money when you have the Supreme Court's decision?
Earlier coverage is here. More on House v. Bell, via Oyez, is here.
Paul House's case is one of those contained in Capital Punishment Stories, by Foundation Press as part of its Law Stories series. The book should be published later this year. Indiana University Law prof Joseph Hoffman presented the House case at UT Law's symposium on the book, noted in this post last year.
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