Death Penalty

After years of allowing his case to drag on, Tennessee released Paul House into the custody of his mother Joyce, where he will remain till October. House's story represents another strong claim of innocence on death row, and his treatment exemplifies the depravity of the system, and the state's negligence to treat prisoners with respect.

House suffers from multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease that attacks the nervous system. House must use a wheelchair, has difficulty speaking, and cannot change or bathe himself. Still, the state has kept him in their custody as a flight risk and threat to society, despite compelling evidence of his innocence and his obvious declining health.

Paul House has been on death row for 22 years. Sentenced to die at 23 for the rape and murder of Carolyn Muncey in 1985, he has lived much of his mature life behind bars and awaiting execution. Throughout his time on death row, Paul House has maintained his innocence. DNA evidence that emerged years after his trial showed that semen from the crime scene actually belonged to the victim's husband, not House, and that blood found on House's jeans was likely the result of a spilled vial of blood in the forensics laboratory.

In subsequent years, Muncey's husband confessed to killing Muncey in a drunken rage to two other people. The case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, which declared in 2006 that House was not given a fair trial, and that no "reasonable juror" would have voted to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt. The case was sent back to the federal courts, who ruled in House's favor and, on December 20th, ordered Tennessee to drop the charges or retry him in 180 days.

Despite all this, Tennessee appealed the order, stalling while House remained locked up and in declining health. It appeared that the state had every intention of waiting until House passed away in prison, or dropped his appeals and "volunteered" for execution. On June 17th, they suddenly announced their intention to retry House, and his bail was set at $500,000, until another judge reduced it to $100,000. An anonymous donor posted the $10,000 that House's mother, Joyce, needed after she had placed a property bond on her house. Yesterday, July 2^nd, Joyce was finally able to pick up her son from a special needs facility in Tennessee. House was met by members of the Tennessee Coalition against State Killing and by his lawyer, Stephen Kissinger.

Although he has not been acquitted, House's return to his mother's custody signifies a great victory for Paul House. He will no longer be confined to death row and will be in the comfort and care of his mother's home. The state D.A. has promised to not seek the death penalty, while Kissinger vows to try and bar the state from retrying House and to move the case to a federal court. House must stay within his mother's house, wear a monitoring bracelet, and register as a sex offender.  But House has regained some of the dignity and respect that he and his family were denied for so long, so let's trust that the state will begin to treat him with the same compassion that the anonymous donor showed.

Emily

DPAC