Judge orders quick retrial for death row inmate
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A federal judge has ordered prosecutors to retry or free a death row inmate who, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded, no juror would have found guilty based on evidence that emerged years after his trial.
Paul House, sentenced to die for the 1985 slaying of a young mother, has been in legal limbo while a prosecutor battled efforts to have him retried.
Now the state will have to do just that, following a ruling Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Harry S. Mattice Jr. that says if the prosecution doesn't begin to retry House by June 17 then he must be released.
"The state needs to do something and do something immediately," Mattice said. "Let's get on with whatever we're going to do."
District Attorney Paul Phillips says he will be ready to start House's new trial by Mattice's deadline, though he doesn't plan to seek the death penalty again. House is scheduled to appear in a county court on June 6 for a bail hearing.
Mattice had set the Wednesday hearing to consider the possible release of House, who has multiple sclerosis and must use a wheelchair. Instead, he granted the inmate's request not to let prosecutors take until November to begin a new trial.
House's attorney Stephen Kissinger said he plans to appeal Mattice's order with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, and will ask that House be released and prosecutors be barred from retrying him. Kissinger says he's concerned once the case heads back to state courts, House will languish even longer in prison.
"If the Sixth Circuit doesn't overturn this court's decision ... the state can take Mr. House, put him in the Union County jail and leave him there for as long as the state courts will allow. They (prosecutors) will attempt to hold him in pretrial detention until they bring him to trial," he said.
Phillips, said he's asked the federal court to keep House in the special needs prison in Nashville where he is now, and said prosecutors are not intentionally delaying House's trial. He said he plans to retry House with old evidence from the first trial and some new evidence he wouldn't describe.
Federal judges, under an order from the U.S. Supreme Court, had already reviewed the case and concluded that new evidence raised reasonable doubt about House's guilt.
House went to prison in February 1986 for killing Carolyn Muncey, whose badly beaten body was found near her home. But House maintains he did not kill her.
In a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court concluded in June 2006 that reasonable jurors would not have convicted House if they had seen what DNA tests revealed in the late 1990s.
Semen collected from Muncey's nightgown and underwear belonged to her husband, undercutting the premise that House murdered her during a sexual assault. The court also said House's lawyers offered new witnesses who provided "substantial evidence pointing to a different suspect."
The justices were referring to the victim's husband and House's former friend, Hubert Muncey. Besides the DNA testing on the semen, five witnesses came forward many years after the trial and gave testimony implicating Muncey.
The Associated Press tried several times to reach Hubert Muncey by phone at his home in Maynardville, Tenn. He remarried 13 years ago and his wife, Joann, said her husband has changed, is "into church now" and "not for anyone being put to death." She said he's not upset by House's possible release but doesn't want him "bothering" their family.
In December, Mattice ordered the state to retry House within 180 days or release him. The state appealed, a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Mattice, and the state dropped its challenges.
In a recent prison interview, House said he's lost all faith in the criminal justice system.
"It's taken me all these years to prove that I didn't do it. And I don't have another 20 years to invest," House said. "I didn't do the crime, but I've done the time."
For House's mother, it's hard not to think the state is delaying on purpose.
"What I really think, and I'm not the only one, is they just want him to linger in there until he dies. Then it will all go away, they think," Joyce House said recently at her home in Crossville, located about 100 miles east of Nashville. "They just don't want to admit they made a mistake."
Joyce House said she's had her son's bedroom prepared for him at her home since the Supreme Court's decision. She sat next to him during the hearing Wednesday and said she was heartbroken over the ruling that her son couldn't come home with her.
"Seems like it's just one disappointment after another. It's not anything new."