Networked Knowledge - Media Report

This version of the report has been prepared by: Dr Robert N Moles

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On 19 September 2008 The Tennessean / Associated Press reported “DA: Hair in victim's fist is not Paul House's”.

Chattanooga — A new DNA test shows that hair found clenched in the hand of a fatally beaten woman in 1985 does not match the man who contends he was wrongly convicted and sent to death row for more than two decades. Testifying at a Thursday hearing, District Attorney Paul Phillips said recent DNA testing shows that a hair taken from the hand of murder victim Carolyn Muncey does not match that of Paul House, who is trying to avoid another trial. House, 46, who now has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair, was sentenced to death and spent 22 years on death row. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that no reasonable juror would have found him guilty based on evidence that emerged after his trial.

In July, Phillips said he would not prosecute again if the hair found in Muncey's hand did not match House. The hair belonged to neither House nor the victim, he said, according to results from a laboratory agreed upon. But on Thursday Phillips testified that House was with other men the night of the slaying and raised the possibility that another man's hair was somehow transferred onto Muncey by House. "Other testing at the FBI lab is still pending," he said. "We expect the results by the end of the month."

U.S. District Judge Harry S. Mattice Jr. denied a defense request to bar the state from prosecuting House again. He described the hearing as "uncharted territory." Public defender Stephen Kissinger of Knoxville said afterward that he would ask the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block the Oct. 14 retrial. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.

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