Those activist judges are back at it. What are they up to now? Taking ‘God’ out of the Pledge of Allegiance again? Overturning the ban on partial-birth abortion? No.

This time it is actually serious. A wrongly convicted man is set to die because of this “judicial activism.”

This time the activist judges are not to be found in San Francisco or Boston, but right in the nation’s heartland: Cincinnati.

In a bitterly divided opinion, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled 8-7 on Oct. 6 to decline the request for a new trial for Paul Gregory House, a Tennessee man convicted in 1985 of rape and murder. Now, unless the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear his case, Tennessee will execute him.

House was convicted of kidnapping, raping and beating to death a neighbor, Carolyn Muncey, in July 1985. Prosecutors pointed to rape as the motive. Jurors used Muncey’s rape as the aggravating factor in sentencing House to death. While most of the evidence against him was circumstantial, the semen found on Muncey’s dead body, linked to House, finalized his verdict and subsequent death sentence.

Later, though, after DNA tests became widely used, it was found to be scientifically indisputable; the semen did not come from House, but from Muncey’s husband, Hubert. During a hearing in front of the Sixth Circuit Court, witnesses testified Mr. Muncey was an alcoholic who beat his wife. Two witnesses testified Mr. Muncey confessed to killing his wife while drunk and a third witness said Mr. Muncey had asked her to help him create an alibi for the time of the murder.

Court after court declined to see the value of the new evidence and consistently ruled against House. Earlier this month, eight judges in Cincinnati agreed.

“Although the evidence against (the) appellant was circumstantial, it was quite strong,” Judge Alan Norris said in the majority opinion. Six other judges penned a fiercely critical opinion declaring House’s innocence and calling for his immediate release. The final judge, Ronald Lee Gilman, wrote a separate dissent and said there should be a new trial.

“I am convinced that we are faced with a real-life murder mystery, an authentic ‘who-done-it’ where the wrong man may be executed,” Judge Gilman in his separate dissent.

Writing for the dissenting six judges, Gilbert Merritt called for House’s release.

“Without any evidence of rape, the state has lost its motive, its theory of the case and the aggravating circumstance on which the state and the jury relied for his death verdict. House has shown it is highly probable that he is completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever,” Merritt said. “House should be immediately released.”

It is cases like this where one longs for life appointments to the bench to be re-thought. A judge who ruled in the majority on this case should be thrown off the bench and disbarred. The utter lack of competence is revolting and shocking.

Does anyone want to take a guess at how the 8-7 vote broke down according to personal political beliefs? You guessed it – along party lines.

The eight judges are all Republicans, including four appointed by President Bush during the last two years, The New York Times reported.

President Bush was asked during the second debate with Sen. Kerry about the sort of person he would nominate to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, should he have the opportunity. He told the American public he would not appoint someone who would have agreed with the Dred Scott decision. Whew. Well at least his appointees are not overtly racist.

But how competent are they if they rule as they did in the House case?

“I would pick people who would be strict constructionists … that’s the kind of judge I’m going to put on there (on the U.S. Supreme Court),” Bush said in the debate. “No litmus test except for how they interpret the Constitution.”

If upholding a death sentence for a man in whose case the only hard piece of evidence has been disproved serves as “strict constructionism,” then those judges and the man who appoints them should be immediately removed from office.

Which activist judges pose a greater threat to this country, the five Democrats on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts or the eight Republicans in Cincinnati?

House’s only hope now lies with the right-leaning U.S. Supreme Court. One can only shudder for him when attempting to predict how they will rule. If this man is executed, it will surely be one of the gravest miscarriages of justice of all time.

-The writer, a junior majoring in political science, is a Hatchet columnist.