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Tennessee: Death row inmate will get new trial after 22 years

By: Monica Mercer
(Contact)

Included in this article

Stephen Kissinger

PDF: Judge Mattice Ruling

PDF: Appeals Court Ruling

A man who has been on death row in Tennessee for 22 years will get a new trial after a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling Monday.

The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the ruling of local U.S. District Judge Harry S. “Sandy” Mattice, who told the state of Tennessee in December it either can retry Paul House on a murder charge or watch him go free.

Federal defender Stephen Kissinger, who represents Mr. House, said his client can prove he’s innocent.

Last December, Judge Mattice said Mr. House deserved a new trial because of questions over the accuracy of blood and semen evidence that connected him to the crime.

Once healthy, Mr. House, 46, now suffers from multiple sclerosis and cannot walk or bathe himself. In consideration of Mr. House’s ill health, Judge Mattice ordered the prisoner’s release last month, pending what the judge said might be a lengthy appeal to the new-trial ruling.

A May 28 hearing is scheduled to determine the conditions of Mr. House’s release, but both sides now say it’s up to the judge to decide where Mr. House spends his time until the new trial.

Wherever that may be, Mr. Kissinger said he is “very happy” his client finally will get another chance at justice after so many years.

“Judge Mattice correctly found that the state of Tennessee had violated the Constitution of the United States,” Mr. Kissinger said of the higher court’s affirmation. “And as a result of those violations, Mr. House was convicted of a crime that he didn’t commit.”

District Attorney General Paul Phillips, who presides over Union, Campbell, Claiborne, Fentress and Scott counties, said he is prepared to retry Mr. House.

“We have 180 days to bring (Mr. House) to trial, and we will do that,” Mr. Phillips said. “We believe we have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of his guilt.”

The office of the state attorney general said in a statement Tuesday that “(Tennessee) will not pursue any further appeals.”

Advocates for Mr. House strongly have disagreed with the original 1986 conviction in which a Union County jury found him guilty of raping and killing 29-year-old Carolyn Muncey.

Mr. House continues to proclaim his innocence, and the case came to a head when the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 2006 to hear arguments on whether Mr. House had received a fair trial. Based in part on its finding that the “central forensic proof connecting House to the crime — the blood and the semen — has been called into question,” the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. House had a constitutional basis for demanding a new trial.

“It is more likely than not that no reasonable juror viewing the record as a whole would lack reasonable doubt,” the 2006 ruling stated.

The Supreme Court, however, ultimately kicked the case back to the U.S. District Court in Chattanooga to decide the new-trial issue. In his ruling last December, Judge Mattice agreed with the Supreme Court’s findings, telling Tennessee it had 180 days to complete a new trial or that Mr. House’s conviction would be vacated.

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