Paul Gregory House v. Ricky Bell, Warden (547 U.S. 518)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 12, 2006 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 547 U.S. 518 · 126 S. Ct. 2064
- Decided
- June 12, 2006
- Term
- October Term 2005
- Vote
- 5–3
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court. Some 20 years ago in rural Tennessee, Carolyn Muncey was murdered. A jury convicted petitioner Paul Gregory House of the crime and sentenced him to death, but new revelations cast doubt on the jury’s verdict. House, protesting his innocence, seeks access to federal court to pursue habeas corpus relief based on constitutional claims that are procedurally barred under state law. Out of respect for the finality of state-court judgments federal habeas courts, as a general rule, are closed to claims that state courts would consider defaulted. In certain exceptional cases involving a compelling claim of actual innocence, however, the state procedural default rule is not a bar to a federal habeas corpus petition. See Schlup v. Delo, 513 U. S. 298, 319-322 (1995). After careful review of the full record, we conclude that House has made the stringent showing required by this exception; and we hold that his federal habeas action may proceed. I We begin with the facts surrounding Mrs. Muncey’s disappearance, the discovery of her body, and House’s arrest. Around 3 p.m. on Sunday, July 14, 1985, two local residents found her body concealed amid brush and tree branches on an embankment roughly 100 yards up the road from her driveway. Mrs. Muncey had been seen last on the evening before, when, around 8 p.m., she and her two children — Lora…
Excerpt of a 67,402-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.