May 12, 2009 Charges dropped against former TN death row inmate By BETH RUCKER and DUNCAN MANSFIELD MAYNARDVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Prosecutors dropped charges on Tuesday against a former inmate who spent two decades on Tennessee's death row before the U.S. Supreme Court questioned his guilt. Prosecutors acknowledged in a surprise petition that new evidence raises doubts that Paul House acted alone in the 1985 death of a young mother and clouds his possible role. House, who spent 22 years on death row, has been under house arrest while awaiting a new trial. House has maintained he didn't kill Carolyn Muncey, whose body was found near her rural Union County home northeast of Knoxville in 1985. Told prosecutors still suspect he was involved in the crime, House responded, "What do you expect them to say?" "I guess they handled it pretty bad," House said in a phone interview. "I could say all kinds of things, but I will keep my mouth shut." The U.S. Supreme Court concluded in 2006 that jurors would have had reasonable doubt about House's guilt if they had seen what DNA tests revealed in the late 1990s — that semen found on Muncey's clothing didn't match House. In 2008, a federal judge ordered that House get a new trial or be set free. House, who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair, was finally released from state prison last July after an anonymous donor posted a $100,000 bond. The 47-year-old has been at his mother's home in Crossville since then. "We are just floating around here on Cloud Nine," House's mother, Joyce House, said. "I am just glad it is over. It has been too long in coming." Since the Supreme Court ruling, more DNA testing on key pieces of evidence — a hair found in Muncey's hand, 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 ruling was pending on 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. District Attorney Paul 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." In fact, different, unidentified sources of DNA were found on each of the key pieces of evidence, defense attorneys have said. That compounded by the "substantial sentence" already served led to requesting charges be withdrawn. Special Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood accepted the request after a brief hearing, which House didn't attend. "Court is the last place I want to be," House said. Phillips did not immediately return calls for comment to his office and cell phone. Neither did House's federal and state public defenders, Stephen Kissinger and Dale Potter. "Each time a layer of this case was peeled away, it revealed more evidence of Paul House's innocence," said Peter Neufeld, co-director of the New York-based Innocence Project, which advised House's legal team. "Paul House's case is a profound reminder that our system of justice must give people every reasonable opportunity to prove their innocence." House said he has been "eating a lot more, eating better and putting on weight" since he got out of prison. He said the family may celebrate by visiting his grandfather in California. Asked where he will go with his life now, House paused. "I really don't know. I ain't had much to think about," he said. Mansfield reported from Knoxville, Tenn.

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