The 6th Circuit is the same Appeals court that voted along party lines to leave a man to die as a political gesture.

An Inexplicable Vote for Death

Paul Gregory House was convicted of murdering a neighbor in 1985, before the era of DNA typing. The Tennessee jury that found him guilty was told that the semen found on the body of the neighbor, Carolyn Muncey, matched his blood type. The jury, citing the fact that Mrs. Muncey had been raped, said Mr. House should be sentenced to death.

It's hard to believe that the jurors would have come to that conclusion if they had known that the semen's DNA matched that of Mrs. Muncey's husband, Hubert, not the defendant. A 15-judge United States Court of Appeals panel in Cincinnati that heard a request to reopen the case knew that. Yet the judges recently voted, 8 to 7, that Mr. House should neither be freed nor given a new trial. They were not swayed by six witnesses implicating Mr. Muncey. Two said Mr. Muncey had told them he had killed his wife while he was drunk.

That eight judges would condemn a man to be executed under these circumstances is shocking. What's worse is that the judges divided along partisan lines. The eight judges appointed by a Republican president voted to keep Mr. House on the road to the death penalty. Six judges appointed by a Democrat wanted to free him, and the seventh called for a new trial. It's hard to dismiss the thought that the Republicans voted as a show of support for capital punishment, not on the merits of the case.

For Mr. House, the next stop is the Supreme Court. For the rest of us, his case should serve as a reminder that when we elect a president, we are also deciding the makeup of our courts.

Once again, we have a partisan vote, two Republicans vs. one Democrat.

"Longer lines may, of course, result from delays and confusion when one side in a political controversy employs" challenges "more vigorously than in previous elections," Judge John M. Rogers wrote for the court. But "such a possibility does not amount to the severe burden upon the right to vote" that would justify a court order, he said.

Rogers, who was appointed by President Bush in 2002, was joined by Senior Judge James L. Ryan, who was appointed by President Reagan in 1985.

Appeals Court Judge R. Guy Cole Jr., a 1995 appointee of President Clinton, dissented. Under the Republican plan, he wrote, "partisan challengers for the first time since the civil rights era seek to target precincts that have a majority African American population and without any legal standards or restrictions, challenge the voter qualifications of people as they stand waiting to exercise their fundamental right to vote."

Cole added: "In this case, we anticipate the arrival of hundreds of Republican lawyers to challenge voter registration at the polls. Behind them will be hundreds of Democrat lawyers to challenge these challengers' challenges. This is a recipe for confusion and chaos."

With this move, Republicans make clear their fundamental disagreement with voting rights, because if they were so concerned about potential problems they wouldn't have waited until the last minute to become such an obstruction.

Late Ruling Allows GOP to Challenge Ohio Voters
By Henry Weinstein
Times Staff Writer

November 2, 2004

CINCINNATI — Ruling early this morning, a divided federal court of appeals handed Republicans a potentially significant election day legal victory in this fiercely contested state, clearing the way for the party to challenge thousands of newly registered voters.

The decision by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals could affect at least 23,000 newly registered Ohio residents whose qualifications Republicans have sought to challenge.

The ruling upheld Ohio's law on voter challenges. It came less than six hours before the 6:30 a.m. scheduled opening of polls here and capped nearly 24 hours of frenzied litigation that had left election officials uncertain of how they would proceed.

"The ball keeps bouncing up and down. We'll do the best we can," said John M. Williams, director of the board of elections in Hamilton County, Ohio's third-most populous county.

Republican Party officials have recruited about 3,500 challengers, many of them lawyers, to go to polling places around the state and question the validity of new voter registrations, particularly in heavily Democratic regions.