MAYNARDVILLE, Tenn. — Prosecutors dropped charges today against a former inmate who spent two decades on Tennessee’s death row before the U.S. Supreme Court questioned his guilt.
District Attorney Paul Phillips said he still believes Paul House, 47, was involved in the slaying of a young mother, but acknowledged in his petition that new evidence raises doubts that House acted alone and clouds what his role was. Special Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood accepted the request after a brief hearing.
House, who spent 22 years on death row, was free and awaiting a new trial next month when the surprise petition was entered. He has maintained he didn’t kill Carolyn Muncey, whose body was found near her rural Union County home northeast of Knoxville in 1985.
In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that reasonable jurors would not have convicted House if they had seen what DNA tests revealed in the late 1990s. The next year, a federal judge ordered that House get a new trial or be set free.
DNA testing on key pieces of evidence — semen on Muncey’s clothing, blood from under her fingernails and cigarettes butts found near her body — didn’t match House. Blood stains on jeans House was wearing the night of the attack did match the victim, although the defense has argued for years that the blood came from vials collected by investigators.
A federal appeals court heard House’s petition in April to stop the retrial on the grounds Tennessee prosecutors had “behaved in an abusive manner” by delaying a retrial while test after test showed the same DNA results.
Phillips’ petition said the state can still prove House was involved in the crime, “but the new evidence (including the forensic examinations) raises a reasonable doubt that he acted alone and the possibility that others were involved in the crime.”
That compounded by the “substantial sentence” already served led to requesting charges be withdrawn against House, who uses a wheelchair because he developed multiple sclerosis in prison.
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