USA - Tennessee. Paul House has been cleared of murder. He is exoneree n° 132

Paul House, a former death row inmate, has been cleared of murder, 3 years after the Supreme Court raised repeated questions about his conviction. State prosecutors today asked a judge to drop all charges against House, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to die in 1986. Special Judge Jon Blackwood accepted the request. House had been scheduled to be executed next month for the July 1985 murder of Carolyn Muncey. He had been on death row for 22 years but was released on bail last year. He has multiple sclerosis and must use a wheelchair. The high court ruled in June 2006 that House was entitled to a new hearing. House's appeal was championed by the Innocence Project, affiliated with the Cardozo School of Law in New York. "In the 3 years since the U.S. Supreme Court stepped into this case and sent it back to the trial court, substantial additional DNA testing and further investigation have shown that he is innocent," said Peter Neufeld, the group's co-director. "Each time a layer of this case was peeled away, it revealed more evidence of Paul House's innocence." Since 1973, 131 other inmates have been exonerated and freed from death row, including another man from Tennessee.  This is the second exoneration in 2009 in the U.S. (see also Apr. 7, May 5 and 28, and July 2, 2008)