The en banc Sixth Circuit voted 8-7, on party lines, against granting the habeas petition of Paul Gregory House. As the New York Times reports:

It's hard to believe that the jurors would have [voted to execute House] 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.

This may actually trump the famous Texas case of the 90s where the Supreme Court ruled that Texas could try, convict, and execute two different people for pulling the trigger on one gun in a murder. Voting to ignore new DNA evidence to preserve an execution? I sure hope there's more to this story, or these judges need not only to be overruled, they need to be impeached.

(Via ACSBlog.)

(Edited on 2007.02.12 to change only formatting - don't need to add italics to certain elements with the new style sheet)

WACO, TEXAS—How long until President Bush pledges to smoke John Kerry out of his hole? Or to "bring him to justice"? The president's new campaign refrain about Kerry—"He can run, but he cannot hide"—signaled the return of Bush the Old West sheriff who pledged to hunt down Osama Bin Laden, "Dead or Alive." The president has always affected a bit of a gunslinger pose on the stump, his shoulders hunched, his arms jutted out at his sides. But his campaign decided to throw in a little Texas lawman talk into the president's stump speech after becoming enamored of Bush's use of the "run, but he cannot hide" line in Friday's debate.

Am I the only one who'd like to see Bush say this again in debate #3 on Wednesday just so Kerry can respond, "I'm not running or hiding. I'm standing right here, Mr. President. Bring it on."

I hope not.