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When a federal judge recently ordered the state either to retry or release Tennessee death row inmate Paul House, it appeared freedom finally was near for a man even the U.S. Supreme Court says is likely innocent. But with just two days left to contest the ruling, Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper announced plans to appeal, a startling move in light of DNA evidence that shreds the state’s original case.
Suffering from multiple sclerosis, House, 46, cannot walk, bathe or even eat without assistance, and his health continues to decline rapidly. Some fear he might not live long enough to be released if the state keeps filing frivolous appeals, while others suggest that might in fact be the state’s intention.
“My way of thinking is they are just trying to kill the man, hoping he dies before they can release him,” says Rep. Mike Turner, a Democrat from Old Hickory. “If that does happen, someone is going to have to answer for it. If this man dies in prison somebody needs to be removed from office.”
Last year Turner urged Gov. Phil Bredesen to pardon House, and in a letter signed by nearly three dozen lawmakers from both parties, warned that “allowing an innocent man to die in prison would be a shame and a blemish on our state.” But Bredesen rejected the advice, opting instead as he has before to let the matter linger in the courts.
The attorney general’s last-minute decision to file an appeal shocked and disappointed Turner, who believes there is a reluctance to admit the state made a mistake in this case. “Politicians and people who work for the government make mistakes all the time, just like everybody else does. But in this case we are dealing with somebody’s life,” he says. “I think they truly hope that he dies, because they know they won’t win the case if he’s retried.”
It seems the only person not surprised by the state’s latest decision to prolong the matter is Paul House, who already has spent nearly 23 years on death row for a murder that mounting post-conviction evidence suggests he didn’t commit. In recent years, House has believed he was on the brink of freedom again and again, particularly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor in June 2006. But each time, his hopes have been dashed.
“He now says he won’t get excited until they roll him out of his cell and tell him he’s going home,” his mother Joyce House says from her home in Crossville,Tenn. “He’s just been disappointed too many times.” At least once a month, the 66-year-old makes the 110-mile trip to Nashville to visit her son in a Tennessee Department of Correction medical ward.
Although she too has tried to contain her expectations, Joyce House admits this time she was convinced her son was coming home. Once again, she readied the spare bedroom she hopes her son will someday occupy, and lately she’s been stocking up on movies he might like to watch. (For example, she’s eagerly awaiting the DVD release of The Kingdom, which her son wants to see.) So when she received a phone call Friday afternoon from her son’s lawyer relaying news about the appeal, her heart sunk: “I was just devastated. I thought this time would be different.”
U.S. District Judge Harry Mattice Jr. in Knoxville issued a ruling on Dec. 20 saying House must be released and his conviction thrown out unless the state retries him within 180 days. It was promising news for House and his supporters, many of whom doubt the Union County district attorney would attempt a retrial given that the crux of the case has crumbled. Besides, even if the prosecutor did commence a new trial, they say a guilty verdict is unlikely given the absence of both motive and meaningful physical evidence.
But last week the attorney general filed a notice to appeal the judge’s order to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, meanwhile asking that House remain incarcerated until the appeal is settled, a process that one expert says could take “a very long time.”
“The AG’s litigation strategy is perpetuating further useless proceedings which cause further delays,” says the local death penalty lawyer, who did not want to be named, adding that such tactics come at great cost to taxpayers. “This is a heartless decision,” he adds, “especially in light of Paul House’s deteriorating physical condition. No legitimate public interest is served by the AG’s decision to appeal the district court’s decision.”
Although the attorney general has declined numerous requests to discuss his office’s handling of the House case, he did release a statement last week briefly summarizing the appeal. In it, Cooper argues that Judge Mattice erred in concluding that House received ineffective representation at trial and that material evidence might have been withheld from the defense. Finally, Cooper challenges the U.S. Supreme Court’s view of the case, arguing “there is sufficient evidence of guilt to support the jury’s verdict” and that “none of the alleged errors attributed to defense counsel and the state call into question the reliability of the jury’s verdict and sentence.”
Paul House was convicted in 1986 for the murder of 29-year-old Carolyn Muncey in Union County, a rural area northeast of Knoxville. At trial, the prosecutor argued that House kidnapped and raped Muncey, then beat her to death and dumped her body in the woods. Rape was the only motive for murder presented to the jury, and it was one of the aggravating factors taken into account when deciding whether to sentence House to death.
But nearly 15 years after his conviction, new evidence ripped apart the state’s entire theory of the case. A DNA test revealed the semen found on Muncey’s body and clothing did not belong to House but to the victim’s husband, William Hubert Muncey.
Despite the new evidence that gutted the state’s case, the state didn’t waiver, arguing that just because House didn’t rape the victim doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her.
In the intervening years, more evidence emerged casting doubt on House’s conviction, along with allegations of evidence tampering and prosecutorial misconduct. At least two witnesses came forward and claimed the victim’s hard-drinking and often abusive husband tearfully confessed to accidentally killing his wife in a heated argument.
Experts even testified that the bloodstains found on House’s blue jeans actually came from vials of blood taken during the autopsy, suggesting evidence was either intentionally tampered with or, at best, was grossly mishandled.
As this new evidence surfaced, House’s post-conviction defense team spent years toiling away in both state and federal courts, but to no avail. After a federal judge in the Eastern District of Tennessee was not swayed, the 6th Circuit reviewed the case and, in a highly controversial 8-7 ruling, narrowly denied House’s petition in 2004. In a scathing dissent, Judge Gilbert S. Merritt wrote, “It is more probable than not that House is innocent of the homicide and that Mr. Muncey killed his wife…. The state, and its officials who have prosecuted, sentenced and reviewed the case, are inclined to persevere in the belief that the state was right all along…. This case is a good example of how these errors can lead to the execution of a defendant who is actually innocent.”
Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and ruled in House’s favor, permitting the use of exonerating DNA and other post-conviction evidence in his appeals. In its opinion, the Supreme Court called this a rare case where “it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror viewing the record as a whole would lack reasonable doubt.”
Now, nearly two years after the Supreme Court opinion, and after a federal judge determined that House must be retried or set free, the state still refuses to relent.
“Their
decision to prolong this case is the greatest abuse of prosecutorial
discretion I have ever witnessed,” says Stephen Kissinger, the federal
public defender representing House. Even more disappointing than their
decision to appeal, he says, is their claim that House would pose a
danger to the public if released pending its outcome. It’s a ridiculous
notion given that House can’t even get out of bed or feed himself
without assistance.
In asking Judge Mattice to keep House incarcerated until the appeal is decided, the state dusts off an unrelated 30-year-old case in which House pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault in Utah. Despite his guilty plea, House—who was 18 at the time—told investigators that he and the female acquaintance smoked marijuana, talked for a long time, “made love,” and then he walked her home. “I did not force her or threaten her. I don’t know why she is calling it rape,” he said at the time, according to a report of the 1980 investigation.
Introducing this decades-old case is a desperate tactic to smear his client, Kissinger says, and it’s an obvious attempt by Cooper to justify ongoing efforts to keep House on death row, despite the fact that the state’s top prosecutor no longer has a legitimate case against him. Although Kissinger declines to discuss circumstances surrounding the previous case, he says even if House was guilty, he’s already served his time for that crime.
Within the next few days, Kissinger plans to respond to the state’s request to keep his client locked up, arguing that their appeal is frivolous and unlikely to prevail. If Judge Mattice agrees, House still could be released in 180 days. Otherwise, he’ll remain in prison until a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit rules on the appeal.
“Bob Cooper is a politician, and that’s basically all he is,” says Kissinger, adding that the state doesn’t want to admit an innocent man has spent more than two decades on Tennessee’s death row. “Because Cooper is a political animal, he knows that he must support the death penalty if he intends to maintain political standing in this state.”
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