Paul House, Death Row Exoneree and Activist, Dies at 63

Paul ​“Greg” House, who spent twen­ty-two years on Tennessee’s death row before his exon­er­a­tion in 2009, died at the age of 63 on March 25, 2025, from com­pli­ca­tions of pneu­mo­nia fol­low­ing years of liv­ing with mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis. His case was one of the rare cas­es to meet the strin­gent ​“actu­al inno­cence” excep­tion to habeas rules that today pre­vent many oth­er peti­tion­ers from even pre­sent­ing their claims of inno­cence in court. 

Mr. House was sen­tenced to death in 1986 for the 1985 mur­der of his neigh­bor in Union County, Tennessee. At tri­al, pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from two wit­ness­es plac­ing Mr. House near where the victim’s body was dis­cov­ered. They also pre­sent­ed a pair of his jeans which con­tained blood that matched the blood type of the vic­tim. The evi­dence, though cir­cum­stan­tial, was enough to con­vict him. However, Mr. House always main­tained his innocence.

During Mr. House’s appeals, new evi­dence emerged, includ­ing mul­ti­ple wit­ness­es who impli­cat­ed the victim’s hus­band in her mur­der. Blood evi­dence analy­sis also revealed incon­sis­ten­cies. A for­mer Tennessee Medical Examiner tes­ti­fied that blood sam­ples used by pros­e­cu­tors were con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed and unre­li­able, and that the blood on Mr. House’s jeans was like­ly from a miss­ing vial of blood tak­en from the vic­tim after she died. Finally, after more than a decade in prison, advanced DNA test­ing revealed that phys­i­cal evi­dence col­lect­ed from the scene impli­cat­ed the victim’s hus­band — direct­ly con­tra­dict­ing tes­ti­mo­ny pre­sent­ed at trial.

In June 2006, review­ing a deci­sion from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the United States Supreme Court held that no rea­son­able juror would have con­vict­ed Mr. House beyond a rea­son­able doubt had they been pre­sent­ed with the new DNA evi­dence. Mr. House remained incar­cer­at­ed while state pros­e­cu­tors planned a retri­al. He was released on bond in 2008 thanks to the largess of an anony­mous donor. Upon release, Mr. House expressed his sim­ple desires: ​“I’m look­ing for­ward to going home and eat­ing some chili verde with pizza.”

Prosecutors ulti­mate­ly dropped all charges against Mr. House in May 2009, and his moth­er Joyce described their ela­tion as ​“float­ing around here on Cloud Nine,” while also adding that jus­tice for her son had been great­ly delayed. Following his exon­er­a­tion, Mr. House joined Witness to Innocence, an anti-death penal­ty orga­ni­za­tion made up of for­mer death row pris­on­ers and their fam­i­lies. Stacy Rector, exec­u­tive direc­tor of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, who worked for many years with Mr. House and his moth­er, recalled his hon­esty and can­did nature, includ­ing his occa­sion­al­ly ​“salty” crit­i­cism of the legal sys­tem. In a state­ment, the Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee also praised the tire­less advo­ca­cy of Mr. House’s legal team and his moth­er Joyce: ​“Although Mr. House spent far too many years wrong­ly con­vict­ed and fac­ing exe­cu­tion, he was able to spend 17 years after his release with Joyce and his oth­er fam­i­ly. He died peace­ful­ly with the knowl­edge that his inno­cence had been recognized.”