(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2005 1 

Syllabus 

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

HOUSE v. BELL, WARDEN 

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 

THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

No. 04–8990. Argued January 11, 2006—Decided June 12, 2006 

A Tennessee jury convicted petitioner House of Carolyn Muncey’s murder and sentenced him to death. The State’s case included evidence 

that FBI testing showing semen consistent (or so it seemed) with

House’s on Mrs. Muncey’s clothing and small bloodstains consistent

with her blood but not House’s on his jeans. In the sentencing phase, 

the jury found, inter alia, the aggravating factor that the murder was

committed while House was committing, attempting to commit, or

fleeing from the commission of rape or kidnaping. In affirming, the 

State Supreme Court described the evidence as circumstantial but

strong. House was denied state postconviction relief. Subsequently,

the Federal District Court denied habeas relief, deeming House’s

claims procedurally defaulted and granting the State summary

judgment on most of his claims. It also found, after an evidentiary

hearing at which House attacked the blood and semen evidence and 

presented other evidence, including a putative confession, suggesting 

that Mr. Muncey committed the crime, that House did not fall within

the “actual innocence” exception to procedural default recognized in 

Schlup v. Delo, 513 U. S. 298, and Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U. S. 333. 

The Sixth Circuit ultimately affirmed. 

Held: 

1. Because House has made the stringent showing required by the 

actual-innocence exception, his federal habeas action may proceed. 

Pp. 16–34. 

(a) To implement the general principle that “comity and finality

‘must yield to the imperative of correcting a fundamentally unjust incarceration,’ ” Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478, 495, this Court has 

ruled that prisoners asserting innocence as a gateway to defaulted 

claims must establish that, in light of new evidence, “it is more likely 
2 HOUSE v. BELL 

Syllabus 

than not that no reasonable juror would have found petitioner guilty

beyond a reasonable doubt.” Schlup, 513 U. S, at 327. Several features of Schlup’s standard bear emphasis here. First, while the 

gateway claim requires “new reliable evidence . . . not presented at

trial,” id., at 324, the habeas court must assess the likely impact of

“ ‘all the evidence’ ” on reasonable jurors, id., at 329. Second, rather 

than requiring absolute certainty about guilt or innocence, a petitioner’s burden at the gateway stage is to demonstrate that more

likely than not, in light of the new evidence, no reasonable juror

would find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Finally, this standard is “by no means equivalent to the standard of Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307,” which governs insufficient evidence claims, id., 

at 330. Rather, because a Schlup claim involves evidence the trial 

jury did not have before it, the inquiry requires the federal court to

assess how reasonable jurors would react to the overall, newly supplemented record. See ibid. Contrary to the State’s arguments, the 

standard of review in two provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 28 U. S. C. §§2244(b)(2)(B)(ii) and

2254(e)(2), is inapplicable here. In addition, because the standard 

does not address a “district court’s independent judgment as to

whether reasonable doubt exists,” Schlup, supra, at 329, a ruling in

House’s favor does not require the showing of clear error as to the 

District Court’s specific findings. It is with these principles in mind

that the evidence developed in House’s federal habeas proceedings 

should be evaluated. Pp. 16–20.

(b) In direct contradiction of evidence presented at trial, DNA 

testing has established that semen on Mrs. Muncey’s clothing came

from her husband, not House. While the State claims that the evidence is immaterial since neither sexual contact nor motive were 

elements of the offense at the guilt phase, this Court considers the

new disclosure of central importance. This case is about who committed the crime, so motive is key, and the prosecution at the guilt 

phase referred to evidence at the scene suggesting that House committed, or attempted to commit, an indignity on Mrs. Muncey. Apart

from proving motive, this was the only forensic evidence at the scene 

that would link House to the murder. Law and society demand accountability for a sexual offense, so the evidence was also likely a factor in persuading the jury not to let him go free. At sentencing, 

moreover, the jury concluded that the murder was committed in the

course of a rape or kidnaping. A jury acting without the assumption

that the semen could have come from House would have found it necessary to establish some different motive, or, if the same motive, an

intent far more speculative. Pp. 20–22. 

(c) The evidentiary disarray surrounding the other forensic evi-
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 3 

Syllabus 

dence, the bloodstains on House’s pants, taken together with the testimony of an Assistant Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Tennessee, would prevent reasonable jurors from placing significant reliance on the blood evidence. The medical examiner who testified 

believes the blood on the jeans must have come from the autopsy

samples. In addition, a vial and a quarter of autopsy blood is unaccounted for; the blood was transported to the FBI together with the 

pants in conditions that could have caused the vials to spill; some

blood did spill at least once during the blood’s journey from Tennessee authorities through FBI hands to a defense expert; the pants 

were stored in a plastic bag bearing a large bloodstain and a label

from a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent; and the box containing the blood samples may have been opened before arriving at the 

FBI lab. None of this evidence was presented to the trial jury. 

Whereas the bloodstains seemed strong evidence of House’s guilt at 

trial, the record now raises substantial questions about the blood’s 

origin. Pp. 22–28.

(d) In the post-trial proceedings, House presented troubling evidence that Mr. Muncey could have been the murderer. Two witnesses described a confession by Mr. Muncey; two others described 

suspicious behavior (a fight between the couple and Mr. Muncey’s attempt to construct a false alibi) around the time of the crime; and

others described a history of spousal abuse. Considered in isolation, 

a reasonable jury might well disregard this evidence, but in combination with the challenges to the blood evidence and lack of motive with

respect to House, evidence pointing to Mr. Muncey likely would reinforce other doubts as to House’s guilt. Pp. 28–33. 

(e) The Assistant Chief Medical Examiner further testified that 

certain injuries discovered on House after the crime likely did not result from involvement in the murder. Certain other evidence—Mrs. 

Muncey’s daughter’s recollection of the night of the murder, and the

District Court’s finding at the habeas proceeding that House was not 

a credible witness—may favor the State. Pp. 33–34. 

(f) While this is not a case of conclusive exoneration, and the issue is close, this is the rare case where—had the jury heard all the 

conflicting testimony—it is more likely than not that no reasonable

juror viewing the record as a whole would lack reasonable doubt. P. 

34. 

2. House has not shown freestanding innocence that would render 

his imprisonment and planned execution unconstitutional under 

Herrera v. Collins, 506 U. S. 390, in which the Court assumed without deciding that “in a capital case a truly persuasive demonstration

of ‘actual innocence’ made after trial would render the execution of a 

defendant unconstitutional, and warrant federal habeas relief if there 
4 HOUSE v. BELL 

Syllabus 

were no state avenue open to process such a claim,” id., at 417. The 

threshold showing for such a right would be extraordinarily high, and 

House has not satisfied whatever burden a hypothetical freestanding

innocence claim would require. He has cast doubt on his guilt sufficient to satisfy Schlup’s gateway standard for obtaining federal review, but given the closeness of the Schlup question here, his showing falls short of the threshold implied in Herrera. Pp. 34–36. 

386 F. 3d 668, reversed and remanded. 

KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which STEVENS, 

SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. ROBERTS, C. J., filed an 

opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in

which SCALIA and THOMAS, JJ., joined. ALITO, J., took no part in the 

consideration or decision of the case. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 04–8990 

PAUL GREGORY HOUSE, PETITIONER v. RICKY 

BELL, WARDEN

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

[June 12, 2006] 

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 
2 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

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 Muncey, age 10, and Matthew 

Muncey, age 8—visited their neighbor, Pam Luttrell. 

According to Luttrell, Mrs. Muncey mentioned her husband, William Hubert Muncey, Jr., known in the community as “Little Hube” and to his family as “Bubbie.” As 

Luttrell recounted Mrs. Muncey’s comment, Mr. Muncey 

“had gone to dig a grave, and he hadn’t come back, but 

that was all right, because [Mrs. Muncey] was going to 

make him take her fishing the next day,” App. 11–12. 

Mrs. Muncey returned home, and some time later, before 

11:00 p.m. at the latest, Luttrell “heard a car rev its motor 

as it went down the road,” something Mr. Muncey customarily did when he drove by on his way home. Record, 

Addendum 4, 5 Tr. of Evidence in No. 378 (Crim. Ct. Union County, Tenn.) 641–642 (hereinafter Tr.). Luttrell 

then went to bed. 

Around 1 a.m., Lora and Matthew returned to Luttrell’s 

home, this time with their father, Mr. Muncey, who said 

his wife was missing. Muncey asked Luttrell to watch the 

children while he searched for his wife. After he left, 

Luttrell talked with Lora. According to Luttrell: 

“[Lora] said she heard a horn blow, she thought she 

heard a horn blow, and somebody asked if Bubbie was 

home, and her mama, you know, told them—no. And 

then she said she didn’t know if she went back to 

sleep or not, but then she heard her mama going down 

the steps crying and I am not sure if that is when she 

told me that she heard her mama say—oh God, no,

not me, or if she told me that the next day, but I do

know that she said she heard her mother going down 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 3 

Opinion of the Court 

the steps crying.” App. 14–15. 

While Lora was talking, Luttrell recalled, “Matt kept

butting in, you know, on us talking, and he said—sister 

they said daddy had a wreck, they said daddy had a 

wreck.” Id., at 13. 

At House’s trial, Lora repeated her account of the

night’s events, this time referring to the “wreck” her 

brother had mentioned. To assist in understanding Lora’s 

account, it should be noted that Mrs. Muncey’s father-inlaw—Little Hube’s father—was sometimes called “Big

Hube.” Lora and her brother called him “Paw Paw.” We 

refer to him as Mr. Muncey, Sr. According to Lora, Mr.

Muncey, Sr. had a deep voice, as does petitioner House. 

Lora testified that after leaving Luttrell’s house with

her mother, she and her brother “went to bed.” Id., at 18. 

Later, she heard someone, or perhaps two different people,

ask for her mother. Lora’s account of the events after she 

went to bed was as follows: 

“Q Laura [sic], at some point after you got back home 

and you went to bed, did anything happen that caused 

your mother to be upset or did you hear anything?

“A Well, it sounded like PawPaw said—where’s 

daddy at, and she said digging a grave. 

“Q Okay. Do you know if it was PawPaw or not, or 

did it sound like PawPaw? 

“A It just sounded like PawPaw.

“Q And your mother told him what? 

“A That he was digging a grave. 

“Q Had you ever heard that voice before that said

that? 

“A I don’t remember. 

“Q After that, at some point later, did you hear anything else that caused your mother to be upset?

“A Well, they said that daddy had a wreck down the

road and she started crying—next to the creek. 
4 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

“Q Your mother started crying. What was it that

they said?

“A That daddy had a wreck.

“Q Did they say where? 

“A Down there next to the creek.” Id., at 18–19. 

Lora did not describe hearing any struggle. Some time 

later, Lora and her brother left the house to look for their 

mother, but no one answered when they knocked at the 

Luttrells’ home, and another neighbor, Mike Clinton, said

he had not seen her. After the children returned home, 

according to Lora, her father came home and “fixed him a

bologna sandwich and he took a bit of it and he says—

sissy, where is mommy at, and I said—she ain’t been here

for a little while.” Id., at 20. Lora recalled that Mr. 

Muncey went outside and, not seeing his wife, returned to

take Lora and Matthew to the Luttrells’ so that he could 

look further. 

The next afternoon Billy Ray Hensley, the victim’s first

cousin, heard of Mrs. Muncey’s disappearance and went to

look for Mr. Muncey. As he approached the Munceys’ 

street, Hensley allegedly “saw Mr. House come out from

under a bank, wiping his hands on a black rag.” Id., at 32. 

Just when and where Hensley saw House, and how well

he could have observed him, were disputed at House’s

trial. Hensley admitted on cross-examination that he

could not have seen House “walking up or climbing up” the

embankment, id., at 39; rather, he saw House, in “[j]ust a

glance,” id., at 40, “appear out of nowhere,” “next to the 

embankment,” id., at 39. On the Munceys’ street, opposite

the area where Hensley said he saw House, a white Plymouth was parked near a sawmill. Another witness, Billy

Hankins, whom the defense called, claimed that around 

the same time he saw a “boy” walking down the street 

away from the parked Plymouth and toward the Munceys’ 

home. This witness, however, put the “boy” on the side of 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 5 

Opinion of the Court 

the street with the parked car and the Munceys’ driveway,

not the side with the embankment. 

Hensley, after turning onto the Munceys’ street, continued down the road and turned into their driveway. “I 

pulled up in the driveway where I could see up toward

Little Hube’s house,” Hensley testified, “and I seen Little 

Hube’s car wasn’t there, and I backed out in the road, and 

come back [the other way].” Id., at 32. As he traveled up

the road, Hensley saw House traveling in the opposite

direction in the white Plymouth. House “flagged [Hensley]

down” through his windshield, ibid., and the two cars met 

about 300 feet up the road from the Munceys’ driveway. 

According to Hensley, House said he had heard Mrs. 

Muncey was missing and was looking for her husband. 

Id., at 33. Though House had only recently moved to the 

area, he was acquainted with the Munceys, had attended a 

dance with them, and had visited their home. He later 

told law enforcement officials he considered both of the 

Munceys his friends. According to Hensley, House said he

had heard that Mrs. Muncey’s husband, who was an alcoholic, was elsewhere “getting drunk.” Ibid. 

As Hensley drove off, he “got to thinking to [him]self—

he’s hunting Little Hube, and Little Hube drunk—what 

would he be doing off that bank . . . .” Ibid. His suspicion

aroused, Hensley later returned to the Munceys’ street

with a friend named Jack Adkins. The two checked different spots on the embankment, and though Hensley saw 

nothing where he looked, Adkins found Mrs. Muncey. Her 

body lay across from the sawmill near the corner where 

House’s car had been parked, dumped in the woods a short 

way down the bank leading toward a creek. 

Around midnight, Dr. Alex Carabia, a practicing pathologist and county medical examiner, performed an 

autopsy. Dr. Carabia put the time of death between 9 and 

11 p.m. Mrs. Muncey had a black eye, both her hands

were bloodstained up to the wrists, and she had bruises on 
6 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

her legs and neck. Dr. Carabia described the bruises as 

consistent with a “traumatic origin,” i.e., a fight or a fall 

on hard objects. 7 id., at 985–986. Based on the neck 

bruises and other injuries, he concluded Mrs. Muncey had 

been choked, but he ruled this out as the cause of death. 

The cause of death, in Dr. Carabia’s view, was a severe 

blow to the left forehead that inflicted both a laceration 

penetrating to the bone and, inside the skull, a severe

right-side hemorrhage, likely caused by Mrs. Muncey’s

brain slamming into the skull opposite the impact. Dr. 

Carabia described this head injury as consistent either 

with receiving a blow from a fist or other instrument or 

with striking some object. 

The county sheriff, informed about Hensley’s earlier

encounter with House, questioned House shortly after the 

body was found. That evening, House answered further

questions during a voluntary interview at the local jail. 

Special Agent Ray Presnell of the Tennessee Bureau of

Investigation (TBI) prepared a statement of House’s answers, which House signed. Asked to describe his whereabouts on the previous evening, House claimed—falsely, 

as it turned out—that he spent the entire evening with his

girlfriend, Donna Turner, at her trailer. Asked whether 

he was wearing the same pants he had worn the night

before, House replied—again, falsely—that he was. House 

was on probation at the time, having recently been released on parole following a sentence of five years to life 

for aggravated sexual assault in Utah. House had 

scratches on his arms and hands, and a knuckle on his 

right ring finger was bruised. He attributed the scratches 

to Turner’s cats and the finger injury to recent construction work tearing down a shed. The next day House gave

a similar statement to a different TBI agent, Charles 

Scott. 

In fact House had not been at Turner’s home. After 

initially supporting House’s alibi, Turner informed au-
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 7 

Opinion of the Court 

thorities that House left her trailer around 10:30 or 10:45 

p.m. to go for a walk. According to Turner’s trial testimony, House returned later—she was not sure when—hot 

and panting, missing his shirt and his shoes. House, 

Turner testified, told her that while he was walking on the 

road near her home, a vehicle pulled up beside him, and 

somebody inside “called him some names and then they 

told him he didn’t belong here anymore.” App. 89. House 

said he tried to ignore the taunts and keep walking, but 

the vehicle pulled in behind him, and “one of them got out

and grabbed him by the shoulder . . . and [House] swung 

around with his right hand” and “hit something.” Ibid. 

According to Turner, House said “he took off down the

bank and started running and he said that he—he said it

seemed forever where he was running. And he said they 

fired two shots at him while he took off down the bank 

. . . .” Ibid. House claimed the assailants “grabbed ahold

of his shirt,” which Turner remembered as “a blue tank 

top, trimmed in yellow,” and “they tore it to where it

wouldn’t stay on him and he said—I just throwed it off 

when I was running.” Id., at 91. Turner, noticing House’s

bruised knuckle, asked how he hurt it, and House told her 

“that’s where he hit.” Id., at 90. Turner testified that she 

“thought maybe my ex-husband had something to do with

it.” Ibid. 

Although the white Plymouth House drove the next day 

belonged to Turner, Turner insisted House had not used 

the car that night. No forensic evidence connected the car 

to the crime; law enforcement officials inspected a white 

towel covering the driver seat and concluded it was clean.

Turner’s trailer was located just under two miles by road,

through hilly terrain, from the Muncey residence.

Law enforcement officers also questioned the victim’s 

husband. Though Mrs. Muncey’s comments to Luttrell 

gave no indication she knew this, Mr. Muncey had spent 

the evening at a weekly dance at a recreation center 
8 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

roughly a mile and a half from his home. In his statement 

to law enforcement—a statement House’s trial counsel 

claims he never saw—Mr. Muncey admitted leaving the

dance early, but said it was only for a brief trip to the 

package store to buy beer. He also stated that he and his 

wife had had sexual relations Saturday morning. 

Late in the evening on Monday, July 15—two days after 

the murder—law enforcement officers visited Turner’s 

trailer. With Turner’s consent, Agent Scott seized the 

pants House was wearing the night Mrs. Muncey disappeared. The heavily soiled pants were sitting in a laundry 

hamper; years later, Agent Scott recalled noticing “reddish

brown stains” he “suspected” were blood. Id., at 274–275. 

Around 4 p.m. the next day, two local law enforcement

officers set out for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in

Washington, D. C., with House’s pants, blood samples 

from the autopsy, and other evidence packed together in a 

box. They arrived at 2:00 a.m. the next morning. On July

17, after initial FBI testing revealed human blood on the

pants, House was arrested. 

II 

The State of Tennessee charged House with capital

murder. At House’s trial, the State presented testimony 

by Luttrell, Hensley, Adkins, Lora Muncey, Dr. Carabia, 

the sheriff, and other law enforcement officials. Through 

TBI Agents Presnell and Scott, the jury learned of House’s 

false statements. Central to the State’s case, however, 

was what the FBI testing showed—that semen consistent 

(or so it seemed) with House’s was present on Mrs. 

Muncey’s nightgown and panties, and that small bloodstains consistent with Mrs. Muncey’s blood but not 

House’s appeared on the jeans belonging to House. 

Regarding the semen, FBI Special Agent Paul Bigbee, a 

serologist, testified that the source was a “secretor,” meaning someone who “secrete[s] the ABO blood group sub-
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 9 

Opinion of the Court 

stances in other body fluids, such as semen and saliva”—a

characteristic shared by 80 percent of the population, 

including House. Id., at 55. Agent Bigbee further testified

that the source of semen on the gown was blood-type A,

House’s own blood type. As to the semen on the panties,

Agent Bigbee found only the H blood-group substance, 

which A and B blood-type secretors secrete along with

substances A and B, and which O-type secretors secrete 

exclusively. Agent Bigbee explained, however—using 

science an amicus here sharply disputes, see Brief for 

Innocence Project, Inc., as Amicus Curiae 24–26—that 

House’s A antigens could have “degraded” into H, App. 57–

58. Agent Bigbee thus concluded that both semen deposits

could have come from House, though he acknowledged 

that that the H antigen could have come from Mrs. 

Muncey herself if she was a secretor—something he “was

not able to determine,” id., at 58—and that, while Mr. 

Muncey was himself blood-type A (as was his wife), Agent 

Bigbee was again “not able to determine his secretor

status,” id., at 57. Agent Bigbee acknowledged on crossexamination that “a saliva sample” would have sufficed to

determine whether Mr. Muncey was a secretor; the State

did not provide such a sample, though it did provide samples of Mr. Muncey’s blood. Id., at 62. 

As for the blood, Agent Bigbee explained that “spots of 

blood” appeared “on the left outside leg, the right bottom 

cuff, on the left thigh and in the right inside pocket and on

the lower pocket on the outside.” Id., at 48. Agent Bigbee 

determined that the blood’s source was type A (the type

shared by House, the victim, and Mr. Muncey). He also 

successfully tested for the enzyme phosphoglucomutase

and the blood serum haptoglobin, both of which “are found 

in all humans” and carry “slight chemical differences” that 

vary genetically and “can be grouped to differentiate

between two individuals if those types are different.” Id., 

at 49–50. Based on these chemical traces and on the A 
10 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

blood type, Agent Bigbee determined that only some 6.75

percent of the population carry similar blood, that the

blood was “consistent” with Mrs. Muncey’s (as determined

by testing autopsy samples), and that it was “impossible” 

that the blood came from House. Id., at 48–52. 

A different FBI expert, Special Agent Chester Blythe, 

testified about fiber analysis performed on Mrs. Muncey’s

clothes and on House’s pants. Although Agent Blythe

found blue jean fibers on Mrs. Muncey’s nightgown, brassier, housecoat, and panties, and in fingernail scrapings

taken from her body (scrapings that also contained trace, 

unidentifiable amounts of blood), he acknowledged that, as 

the prosecutor put it in questioning the witness, “blue jean 

material is common material,” so “this doesn’t mean that 

the fibers that were all over the victim’s clothing were 

necessarily from [House’s] pair of blue jeans.” 6 Tr. 864–865. 

On House’s pants, though cotton garments both transfer

and retain fibers readily, Agent Blythe found neither hair 

nor fiber consistent with the victim’s hair or clothing. 

In the defense case House called Hankins, Clinton, and 

Turner, as well as House’s mother, who testified that 

House had talked to her by telephone around 9:30 p.m. on

the night of the murder and that he had not used her car 

that evening. House also called the victim’s brother, Ricky 

Green, as a witness. Green testified that on July 2, roughly

two weeks before the murder, Mrs. Muncey called him and

“said her and Little Hube had been into it and she said she 

was wanting to leave Little Hube, she said she was wanting to get out—out of it, and she was scared.” 7 id., at 

1088. Green recalled that at Christmastime in 1982 he 

had seen Mr. Muncey strike Mrs. Muncey after returning 

home drunk. 

As Turner informed the jury, House’s shoes were found

several months after the crime in a field near her home. 

Turner delivered them to authorities. Though the jury did 

not learn of this fact (and House’s counsel claims he did 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 11 

Opinion of the Court 

not either), the State tested the shoes for blood and found 

none. House’s shirt was not found. 

The State’s closing argument suggested that on the

night of her murder, Mrs. Muncey “was deceived . . . . She 

had been told [her husband] had had an accident.” 9 id., 

at 1226. The prosecutor emphasized the FBI’s blood

analysis, noting that “after running many, many, many 

tests,” Agent Bigbee: 

“was able to tell you that the blood on the defendant’s

blue jeans was not his own blood, could not be his own 

blood. He told you that the blood on the blue jeans 

was consistent with every characteristic in every respect of the deceased’s, Carolyn Muncey’s, and that 

ninety-three (93%) percent of the white population 

would not have that blood type. . . . He can’t tell you

one hundred (100%) percent for certain that it was her 

blood. But folks, he can sure give you a pretty good—

a pretty good indication.” Id., at 1235–1236. 

In the State’s rebuttal, after defense counsel questioned 

House’s motive “to go over and kill a woman that he barely 

knew[,] [w]ho was still dressed, still clad in her clothes,” 

Id., at 1274, the prosecutor referred obliquely to the semen 

stains. While explaining that legally “it does not make 

any difference under God’s heaven, what the motive was,”

App. 106, the prosecutor told the jury, “you may have an

idea why he did it,” ibid.: 

“The evidence at the scene which seemed to suggest 

that he was subjecting this lady to some kind of indignity, why would you get a lady out of her house,

late at night, in her night clothes, under the trick that

her husband has had a wreck down by the creek? . . . 

Well, it is because either you don’t want her to tell 

what indignities you have subjected her to, or she is

unwilling and fights against you, against being subjected to those indignities. In other words, it is either 
12 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

to keep her from telling what you have done to her, or 

it is that you are trying to get her to do something

that she nor any mother on that road would want to

do with Mr. House, under those conditions, and you 

kill her because of her resistance. That is what the 

evidence at the scene suggests about motive.” Id., at 

106–107. 

In addition the government suggested the black rag

Hensley said he saw in House’s hands was in fact the

missing blue tank top, retrieved by House from the crime 

scene. And the prosecution reiterated the importance of 

the blood. “[D]efense counsel,” he said, “does not start out 

discussing the fact that his client had blood on his jeans on 

the night that Carolyn Muncey was killed. . . . He doesn’t 

start with the fact that nothing that the defense has introduced in this case explains what blood is doing on his

jeans, all over his jeans, that is scientifically, completely 

different from his blood.” Id., at 104–105. The jury found 

House guilty of murder in the first degree.

The trial advanced to the sentencing phase. As aggravating factors to support a capital sentence, the State

sought to prove: (1) that House had previously been convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence; 

(2) that the homicide was especially heinous, atrocious, or

cruel in that it involved torture or depravity of mind; and 

(3) that the murder was committed while House was

committing, attempting to commit, or fleeing from the 

commission of, rape or kidnaping. See Tenn. Code Ann. 

§§39–2–203(i)(2), (5), (7) (1982) (repealed 1989); compare 

§§39–13–204(i)(2), (5), (7) (2003). After presenting evidence of House’s parole status and aggravated sexual

assault conviction, the State rested. As mitigation, the

defense offered testimony from House’s father and mother, 

as well as evidence, presented through House’s mother, 

that House attempted suicide after the guilt-phase verdict. 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 13 

Opinion of the Court 

Before the attempt House wrote his mother a letter professing his innocence. 

In closing the State urged the jury to find all three 

aggravating factors and impose death. As to the kidnaping or rape factor, the prosecution suggested Mrs. Muncey 

was “decoy[ed] or entic[ed] . . . away from her family, and 

confin[ed] her against her will because you know that as 

she was being beaten to death.” 10 Tr. 1410. “We also 

think,” the prosecutor added, “the proof shows strong 

evidence of attempted sexual molestation of the victim to

accompany the taking away and murdering her.” Id., at 

1410–1411. Later the prosecutor argued, “I think the

proof shows in the record that it is more likely than not

that having been through the process before and having 

been convicted of a crime involving the threat of violence, 

or violence to another person, aggravated sexual assault, 

that the defendant cannot benefit from the type of rehabilitation that correction departments can provide.” Id., at 

1413. The jury unanimously found all three aggravating 

factors and concluded “there are no mitigating circumstances sufficiently substantial to outweigh the statutory 

aggravating circumstance or circumstances.” Id., at1454. 

The jury recommended a death sentence, which the trial 

judge imposed. 

III 

The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed House’s conviction and sentence, describing the evidence against House

as “circumstantial” but “quite strong.” State v. House, 743 

S. W. 2d 141, 143, 144 (1987). Two months later, in a state 

trial court, House filed a pro se petition for postconviction

relief, arguing he received ineffective assistance of counsel 

at trial. The court appointed counsel, who amended the 

petition to raise other issues, including a challenge to 

certain jury instructions. At a hearing before the same

judge who conducted the trial, House’s counsel offered no 
14 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

proof beyond the trial transcript. The trial court dismissed the petition, deeming House’s trial counsel adequate and overruling House’s other objections. On appeal

House’s attorney renewed only the jury-instructions argument. In an unpublished opinion the Tennessee Court 

of Criminal Appeals affirmed, and both the Tennessee 

Supreme Court and this Court, House v. Tennessee, 498 

U. S. 912 (1990), denied review.

House filed a second postconviction petition in state court 

reasserting his ineffective-assistance claim and seeking 

investigative and/or expert assistance. After extensive 

litigation regarding whether House’s claims were procedurally defaulted the Tennessee Supreme Court held that 

House’s claims were barred under a state statute providing that claims not raised in prior postconviction proceedings are presumptively waived, Tenn. Code Ann. §40–30–

112 (1990) (repealed 1995), and that courts may not consider grounds for relief “which the court finds should be

excluded because they have been waived or previously 

determined,” §40–30–111 (repealed 1995). See House v. 

State, 911 S. W. 2d 705 (Tenn. 1995). This Court denied 

certiorari. House v. Tennessee, 517 U. S. 1193 (1996). 

House next sought federal habeas relief, asserting numerous claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and 

prosecutorial misconduct. The United States District 

Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, though deeming House’s claims procedurally defaulted and granting 

summary judgment to the State on the majority of House’s

claims, held an evidentiary hearing to determine whether 

House fell within the “actual innocence” exception to

procedural default that this Court recognized as to substantive offenses in Schlup and as to death sentences in 

Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U. S. 333 (1992). Presenting evidence we describe in greater detail below, House attacked

the semen and blood evidence used at his trial and presented other evidence, including a putative confession, 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 15 

Opinion of the Court 

suggesting that Mr. Muncey, not House, committed the 

murder. The District Court nevertheless denied relief, 

holding that House had neither demonstrated actual

innocence of the murder under Schlup nor established 

that he was ineligible for the death penalty under Sawyer. 

The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted a

certificate of appealability under 28 U. S. C. §2253(c) as to 

all claims in the habeas petition. On the merits a divided 

panel affirmed, but its opinion was withdrawn and the 

case taken en banc. A divided en banc court certified 

state-law questions to the Tennessee Supreme Court. 

House v. Bell, 311 F. 3d 767 (CA6 2002). Concluding that 

House had made a compelling showing of actual innocence, and recognizing that in Herrera v. Collins, 506 U. S. 

390 (1993), this Court assumed without deciding that “in a 

capital case a truly persuasive demonstration of ‘actual

innocence’ made after trial would render the execution of a 

defendant unconstitutional, and warrant federal habeas 

relief if there were no state avenue open to process such a 

claim,” id., at 417, the six-judge majority certified questions to the State Supreme Court, 311 F. 3d, at 777–778. 

The questions sought “to ascertain whether there remains

a ‘state avenue open to process such a claim’ in this case.” 

Id., at 768. Four dissenting judges argued the court 

should have reached the merits, rather than certifying 

questions to the state court; these judges asserted that

House could not obtain relief under Schlup, let alone 

Sawyer and Herrera. 311 F. 3d, at 780–781 (Boggs, J., dissenting). A fifth dissenter explained that while he agreed

with the majority that House “presents a strong claim for

habeas relief, at least at the sentencing phase of the case,”

he objected to the certification of questions to the Tennessee high court. Id., at 787 (opinion of Gilman, J.). This 

Court denied certiorari. Bell v. House, 539 U. S. 937 

(2003).

The State urged the Tennessee Supreme Court not to 
16 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

answer the Court of Appeals’ certified questions, and the 

state court did not do so. The case returned to the United 

States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. This time 

an eight-judge majority affirmed the District Court’s 

denial of habeas relief. 386 F. 3d 668 (2004). Six dissenters argued that House not only had met the actual innocence standard for overcoming procedural default but also 

was entitled to immediate release under Herrera. 386 

F. 3d, at 708 (Merritt, J., dissenting). A seventh dissenter 

(the same judge who wrote separately in the previous en

banc decision) described the case as “a real-life murder 

mystery, an authentic ‘who-done-it’ where the wrong man 

may be executed.” Id., at 709 (opinion of Gilman, J.). He 

concluded such grave uncertainty necessitated relief in the

form of a new trial for House. Id., at 710. 

We granted certiorari, 545 U. S. ___ (2005), and now 

reverse. 

IV 

As a general rule, claims forfeited under state law may

support federal habeas relief only if the prisoner demonstrates cause for the default and prejudice from the asserted error. See Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478, 485 

(1986); Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 129 (1982); Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72, 87 (1977). The rule is based 

on the comity and respect that must be accorded to statecourt judgments. See, e.g., Engle, supra, at 126–129; 

Wainwright, supra, at 89–90. The bar is not, however, 

unqualified. In an effort to “balance the societal interests 

in finality, comity, and conservation of scarce judicial 

resources with the individual interest in justice that arises

in the extraordinary case,” Schlup, 513 U. S., at 324, the 

Court has recognized a miscarriage-of-justice exception. 

“‘[I]n appropriate cases,’” the Court has said, “the principles of comity and finality that inform the concepts of

cause and prejudice ‘must yield to the imperative of cor-
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 17 

Opinion of the Court 

recting a fundamentally unjust incarceration,’ ” Carrier, 

supra, at 495 (quoting Engle, supra, at 135).

In Schlup, the Court adopted a specific rule to implement this general principle. It held that prisoners asserting innocence as a gateway to defaulted claims must

establish that, in light of new evidence, “it is more likely 

than not that no reasonable juror would have found petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” 513 U. S., at 

327. This formulation, Schlup explains, “ensures that

petitioner’s case is truly ‘extraordinary,’ while still providing petitioner a meaningful avenue by which to avoid a

manifest injustice.” Ibid. (quoting McCleskey v. Zant, 499 

U. S. 467, 494 (1991)). In the usual case the presumed 

guilt of a prisoner convicted in state court counsels against

federal review of defaulted claims. Yet a petition supported by a convincing Schlup gateway showing “raise[s]

sufficient doubt about [the petitioner’s] guilt to undermine

confidence in the result of the trial without the assurance 

that that trial was untainted by constitutional error”;

hence, “a review of the merits of the constitutional claims” 

is justified. 513 U. S., at 317. 

For purposes of this case several features of the Schlup

standard bear emphasis. First, although “[t]o be credible” 

a gateway claim requires “new reliable evidence—whether

it be exculpatory scientific evidence, trustworthy eyewitness accounts, or critical physical evidence—that was not 

presented at trial,” id., at 324, the habeas court’s analysis

is not limited to such evidence. There is no dispute in this

case that House has presented some new reliable evidence; 

the State has conceded as much, see infra, at 20–21. In 

addition, because the District Court held an evidentiary

hearing in this case, and because the State does not challenge the court’s decision to do so, we have no occasion to 

elaborate on Schlup’s observation that when considering 

an actual-innocence claim in the context of a request for 

an evidentiary hearing, the District Court need not “test 
18 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

the new evidence by a standard appropriate for deciding a

motion for summary judgment,” but rather may “consider

how the timing of the submission and the likely credibility

of the affiants bear on the probable reliability of that

evidence.” 513 U. S., at 331–332. Our review in this case 

addresses the merits of the Schlup inquiry, based on a 

fully developed record, and with respect to that inquiry 

Schlup makes plain that the habeas court must consider 

“‘all the evidence,’” old and new, incriminating and exculpatory, without regard to whether it would necessarily be

admitted under “rules of admissibility that would govern

at trial.” See id., at 327–328 (quoting Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant? Collateral Attack on Criminal Judgments, 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. 142, 160 (1970)). Based on this 

total record, the court must make “a probabilistic determination about what reasonable, properly instructed 

jurors would do.” 513 U. S., at 329. The court’s function is 

not to make an independent factual determination about 

what likely occurred, but rather to assess the likely impact 

of the evidence on reasonable jurors. Ibid. 

Second, it bears repeating that the Schlup standard is 

demanding and permits review only in the “ ‘extraordinary’ ” case. Id., at 327 (quoting Zant, supra, at 494); see

also 513 U. S., at 324 (emphasizing that “in the vast majority of cases, claims of actual innocence are rarely successful”). At the same time, though, the Schlup standard 

does not require absolute certainty about the petitioner’s

guilt or innocence. A petitioner’s burden at the gateway 

stage is to demonstrate that more likely than not, in light

of the new evidence, no reasonable juror would find him 

guilty beyond a reasonable doubt—or, to remove the double negative, that more likely than not any reasonable

juror would have reasonable doubt. 

Finally, as the Schlup decision explains, the gateway

actual-innocence standard is “by no means equivalent to 

the standard of Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979),” 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 19 

Opinion of the Court 

which governs claims of insufficient evidence. Id., at 330. 

When confronted with a challenge based on trial evidence, 

courts presume the jury resolved evidentiary disputes 

reasonably so long as sufficient evidence supports the 

verdict. Because a Schlup claim involves evidence the 

trial jury did not have before it, the inquiry requires the

federal court to assess how reasonable jurors would react 

to the overall, newly supplemented record. See ibid. If 

new evidence so requires, this may include consideration

of “the credibility of the witnesses presented at trial.” 

Ibid.; see also ibid. (noting that “[i]n such a case,

the habeas court may have to make some credibility 

assessments”). 

As an initial matter, the State argues that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA),

110 Stat. 1214, has replaced the Schlup standard with a 

stricter test based on Sawyer, which permits consideration 

of successive, abusive, or defaulted sentencing-related 

claims only if the petitioner “show[s] by clear and convincing evidence that, but for a constitutional error, no reasonable juror would have found the petitioner eligible for the

death penalty under the applicable state law,” 505 U. S., at

336. One AEDPA provision establishes a similar standard 

for second or successive petitions involving no retroactively

applicable new law, 28 U. S. C. §2244(b)(2)(B)(ii); another 

sets it as a threshold for obtaining an evidentiary hearing

on claims the petitioner failed to develop in state court, 

§2254(e)(2). Neither provision addresses the type of petition at issue here—a first federal habeas petition seeking 

consideration of defaulted claims based on a showing of 

actual innocence. Thus, the standard of review in these 

provisions is inapplicable. Cf. Lonchar v. Thomas, 517 

U. S. 314, 324 (1996) (“[D]ismissal of a first federal habeas 

petition is a particularly serious matter”). 

The State also argues that the District Court’s findings

in this case tie our hands, precluding a ruling in House’s 
20 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

favor absent a showing of clear error as to the District

Court’s specific determinations. This view overstates the 

effect of the District Court’s ruling. Deference is given to a

trial court’s assessment of evidence presented to it in the 

first instance. Yet the Schlup inquiry, we repeat, requires 

a holistic judgment about “ ‘all the evidence,’” 513 U. S., at 

328 (quoting Friendly, supra, at 160), and its likely effect 

on reasonable jurors applying the reasonable-doubt standard. As a general rule, the inquiry does not turn on

discrete findings regarding disputed points of fact, and

“[i]t is not the district court’s independent judgment as to

whether reasonable doubt exists that the standard addresses,” 513 U. S., at 329. Here, although the District

Court attentively managed complex proceedings, carefully 

reviewed the extensive record, and drew certain conclusions about the evidence, the court did not clearly apply 

Schlup’s predictive standard regarding whether reasonable jurors would have reasonable doubt. As we shall 

explain, moreover, we are uncertain about the basis for 

some of the District Court’s conclusions—a consideration 

that weakens our reliance on its determinations. 

With this background in mind we turn to the evidence 

developed in House’s federal habeas proceedings. 

DNA Evidence 

First, in direct contradiction of evidence presented at 

trial, DNA testing has established that the semen on Mrs. 

Muncey’s nightgown and panties came from her husband, 

Mr. Muncey, not from House. The State, though conceding this point, insists this new evidence is immaterial. At 

the guilt phase at least, neither sexual contact nor motive

were elements of the offense, so in the State’s view the 

evidence, or lack of evidence, of sexual assault or sexual 

advance is of no consequence. We disagree. In fact we 

consider the new disclosure of central importance.

From beginning to end the case is about who committed 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 21 

Opinion of the Court 

the crime. When identity is in question, motive is key.

The point, indeed, was not lost on the prosecution, for it

introduced the evidence and relied on it in the final guiltphase closing argument. Referring to “evidence at the 

scene,” the prosecutor suggested that House committed, or 

attempted to commit, some “indignity” on Mrs. Muncey 

that neither she “nor any mother on that road would want 

to do with Mr. House.” 9 Tr. 1302–1303. Particularly in a

case like this where the proof was, as the State Supreme

Court observed, circumstantial, State v. House, 743 S. W. 

2d, at 143, 144, we think a jury would have given this

evidence great weight. Quite apart from providing proof of 

motive, it was the only forensic evidence at the scene that 

would link House to the murder. 

Law and society, as they ought to do, demand accountability when a sexual offense has been committed, so not 

only did this evidence link House to the crime; it likely 

was a factor in persuading the jury not to let him go free.

At sentencing, moreover, the jury came to the unanimous

conclusion, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the murder

was committed in the course of a rape or kidnaping. The 

alleged sexual motivation relates to both those determinations. This is particularly so given that, at the sentencing

phase, the jury was advised that House had a previous 

conviction for sexual assault. 

A jury informed that fluids on Mrs. Muncey’s garments

could have come from House might have found that House 

trekked the nearly two miles to the victim’s home and

lured her away in order to commit a sexual offense. By

contrast a jury acting without the assumption that the 

semen could have come from House would have found it 

necessary to establish some different motive, or, if the

same motive, an intent far more speculative. When the 

only direct evidence of sexual assault drops out of the case, 

so, too, does a central theme in the State’s narrative linking House to the crime. In that light, furthermore, 
22 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

House’s odd evening walk and his false statements to

authorities, while still potentially incriminating, might 

appear less suspicious. 

Bloodstains 

The other relevant forensic evidence is the blood on 

House’s pants, which appears in small, even minute, 

stains in scattered places. As the prosecutor told the jury,

they were stains that, due to their small size, “you or I

might not detect[,] [m]ight not see, but which the FBI lab

was able to find on [House’s] jeans.” App. 11. The stains 

appear inside the right pocket, outside that pocket, near

the inside button, on the left thigh and outside leg, on the

seat of the pants, and on the right bottom cuff, including 

inside the pants. Due to testing by the FBI, cuttings now

appear on the pants in several places where stains evidently were found. (The cuttings were destroyed in the 

testing process, and defense experts were unable to replicate the tests.) At trial, the government argued “nothing

that the defense has introduced in this case explains what

blood is doing on his jeans, all over [House’s] jeans, that is 

scientifically, completely different from his blood.” Id., at 

105. House, though not disputing at this point that the 

blood is Mrs. Muncey’s, now presents an alternative explanation that, if credited, would undermine the probative

value of the blood evidence. 

During House’s habeas proceedings, Dr. Cleland Blake,

an Assistant Chief Medical Examiner for the State of 

Tennessee and a consultant in forensic pathology to the

TBI for 22 years, testified that the blood on House’s pants 

was chemically too degraded, and too similar to blood

collected during the autopsy, to have come from Mrs.

Muncey’s body on the night of the crime. The blood samples collected during the autopsy were placed in test tubes 

without preservative. Under such conditions, according to

Dr. Blake, “you will have enzyme degradation. You will 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 23 

Opinion of the Court 

have different blood group degradation, blood marker degradation.” Record, Doc. 275, p. 80 (hereinafter R275:80). 

The problem of decay, moreover, would have been compounded by the body’s long exposure to the elements, 

sitting outside for the better part of a summer day. In 

contrast, if blood is preserved on cloth, “it will stay there

for years,” ibid.; indeed, Dr. Blake said he deliberately 

places blood drops on gauze during autopsies to preserve it 

for later testing. The blood on House’s pants, judging by 

Agent Bigbee’s tests, showed “similar deterioration, 

breakdown of certain of the named numbered enzymes” as 

in the autopsy samples. Id., at 110. “[I]f the victim’s blood

had spilled on the jeans while the victim was alive and 

this blood had dried,” Dr. Blake stated, “the deterioration 

would not have occurred,” ibid., and “you would expect

[the blood on the jeans] to be different than what was in 

the tube,” id., at 113. Dr. Blake thus concluded the blood 

on the jeans came from the autopsy samples, not from

Mrs. Muncey’s live (or recently killed) body.

Other evidence confirms that blood did in fact spill from 

the vials. It appears the vials passed from Dr. Carabia, 

who performed the autopsy, into the hands of two local 

law enforcement officers, who transported it to the FBI,

where Agent Bigbee performed the enzyme tests. The 

blood was contained in four vials, evidently with neither 

preservative nor a proper seal. The vials, in turn, were 

stored in a styrofoam box, but nothing indicates the box 

was kept cool. Rather, in what an evidence protocol expert 

at the habeas hearing described as a violation of proper

procedure, the styrofoam box was packed in the same

cardboard box as other evidence including House’s pants 

(apparently in a paper bag) and other clothing (in separate 

bags). The cardboard box was then carried in the officers’ 

car while they made the 10-hour journey from Tennessee 

to the FBI lab. Dr. Blake stated that blood vials in hot 

conditions (such as a car trunk in the summer) could blow 
24 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

open; and in fact, by the time the blood reached the FBI it

had hemolyzed, or spoiled, due to heat exposure. By the 

time the blood passed from the FBI to a defense expert, 

roughly a vial and a half were empty, though Agent Bigbee testified he used at most a quarter of one vial. Blood, 

moreover, had seeped onto one corner of the styrofoam box 

and onto packing gauze inside the box below the vials. 

In addition, although the pants apparently were packaged initially in a paper bag and FBI records suggest they

arrived at the FBI in one, the record does not contain the 

paper bag but does contain a plastic bag with a label 

listing the pants and Agent Scott’s name—and the plastic 

bag has blood on it. The blood appears in a forked streak

roughly five inches long and two inches wide running

down the bag’s outside front. Though testing by House’s

expert confirmed the stain was blood, the expert could not

determine the blood’s source. Speculations about when

and how the blood got there add to the confusion regarding

the origins of the stains on House’s pants. 

Faced with these indications of, at best, poor evidence

control, the State attempted to establish at the habeas 

hearing that all blood spillage occurred after Agent Bigbee 

examined the pants. Were that the case, of course, then 

blood would have been detected on the pants before any 

spill—which would tend to undermine Dr. Blake’s analysis

and support using the bloodstains to infer House’s guilt. 

In support of this theory the State put on testimony by a

blood spatter expert who believed the “majority” of the 

stains were “transfer stains,” that is, stains resulting from 

“wip[ing] across the surface of the pants” rather than

seeping or spillage. App. 293–294. Regarding the spillage 

in the styrofoam box, the expert noted that yellow “Tennessee Crime Laboratory” tape running around the box and 

down all four sides did not line up when the bloodstains on

the box’s corner were aligned. The inference was that the 

FBI received the box from Tennessee authorities, opened it, 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 25 

Opinion of the Court 

and resealed it before the spillage occurred. Reinforcing 

this theory, Agent Bigbee testified that he observed no

blood spillage in the styrofoam box and that had he detected such signs of evidence contamination, FBI policy

would have required immediate return of the evidence. 

In response House argued that even assuming the tape

alignment showed spillage occurring after FBI testing,

spillage on one or more earlier occasions was likely. In 

fact even the State’s spatter expert declined to suggest the 

blood in the box and on the packing gauze accounted for 

the full vial and a quarter missing. And when the defense 

expert opened the box and discovered the spills, the bulk 

of the blood-caked gauze was located around and underneath the half-full vial, which was also located near the 

stained corner. No gauze immediately surrounding the

completely empty vial was stained. The tape, moreover,

circled the box in two layers, one underneath the other,

and in one spot the underlying layer stops cleanly at the

lid’s edge, as if cut with a razor, and does not continue

onto the body of the box below. In House’s view this clean 

cut suggests the double layers could not have resulted

simply from wrapping the tape around twice, as the spatter expert claimed; rather, someone possessing Tennessee 

Crime Lab tape—perhaps the officers transporting the 

blood and pants—must have cut the box open and resealed

it, possibly creating an opportunity for spillage. Supporting the same inference, a label on the box’s lid lists both 

blood and vaginal secretions as the box’s contents, though

Agent Bigbee’s records show the vaginal fluids arrived at

the FBI in a separate envelope. Finally, crossexamination revealed that Agent Bigbee’s practice did not 

always match the letter of FBI policy. Although Mrs.

Muncey’s bra and housecoat were packed together in a 

single bag, creating, according to Agent Bigbee, a risk of

“cross contamination,” id., at 286, he did not return them; 

nor did he note the discrepancy between the “[b]lood and 
26 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

[v]aginal secretions” label and the styrofoam box’s actual

contents, though he insisted his customary practice was to 

match labels with contents immediately upon opening an 

evidence box. Id., at 287. 

The State challenged Dr. Blake’s scientific conclusions, 

and to do so it called Agent Bigbee as a witness. Agent 

Bigbee defended the testimony he had given at the trial. 

To begin with, he suggested Dr. Blake had misconstrued 

the term “inc” in Agent Bigbee’s trial report, interpreting

it to mean “incomplete” when it in fact meant “inconclusive.” Id., at 254–256, 282. Dr. Blake, however, replied 

“[s]ame difference” when asked whether his opinion would 

change if “inc” meant “inconclusive.” Id., at 256; see also 

6 Tr. 906 (Bigbee trial testimony) (“You will notice I have 

INC written under the transparent, that is the symbol

that I use to mean the test was incomplete”). Agent Bigbee further asserted that, whereas Dr. Blake (in Bigbee’s

view) construed the results to mean the enzyme was not 

present at all, in fact the results indicated only that Bigbee could not identify the marker type on whatever enzymes were present. App. 282. Yet the State did not 

cross-examine Dr. Blake on this point, nor did the District

Court resolve the dispute one way or the other, so on this 

record it seems possible that Dr. Blake meant only to

suggest the blood was too degraded to permit conclusive

typing. The State, moreover, does not ask us to question

Dr. Blake’s basic premise about the durability of blood 

chemicals deposited on cotton—a premise Agent Bigbee

appeared to accept as a general matter. Given the record 

as it stands, then, we cannot say Dr. Blake’s conclusions 

have been discredited; if other objections might be adduced, they must await further proceedings. At the least, 

the record before us contains credible testimony suggesting that the missing enzyme markers are generally better 

preserved on cloth than in poorly kept test tubes, and that

principle could support House’s spillage theory for the 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 27 

Opinion of the Court 

blood’s origin. 

In this Court, as a further attack on House’s showing, 

the State suggests that, given the spatter expert’s testimony, House’s theory would require a jury to surmise that

Tennessee officials donned the pants and deliberately 

spread blood over them. We disagree. This should be a 

matter for the trier of fact to consider in the first instance, 

but we can note a line of argument that could refute the

State’s position. It is correct that the State’s spatter expert opined that the stains resulted from wiping or smearing rather than direct spillage; and she further stated that

the distribution of stains in some spots suggests the pants

were “folded in some manner or creased in some manner” 

when the transfers occurred, id., at 296. While the expert

described this pattern, at least with respect to stains on

the lap of the pants, as “consistent” with the pants being

worn at the time of the staining, ibid., her testimony, as

we understand it, does not refute the hypothesis that the 

packaging of the pants for transport was what caused

them to be folded or creased. It seems permissible, moreover, to conclude that the small size and wide distribution 

of stains—inside the right pocket, outside that pocket, 

near the inside button, on the left thigh and outside leg, on

the seat of the pants, and on the right bottom cuff, including inside the pants—fits as well with spillage in transport 

as with wiping and smearing from bloody objects at the

crime scene, as the State proposes. (As has been noted, no 

blood was found on House’s shoes.)

The District Court discounted Dr. Blake’s opinion, not

on account of Blake’s substantive approach, but based on

testimony from Agent Scott indicating he saw, as the

District Court put it, “what appeared to be bloodstains on 

Mr. House’s blue jeans when the jeans were removed from 

the laundry hamper at Ms. Turner’s trailer.” Id., at 348. 

This inference seems at least open to question, however. 

Agent Scott stated only that he “saw reddish brownish 
28 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

stains [he] suspected to be blood”; he admitted that he

“didn’t thoroughly examine the blue jeans at that time.” 

R276:113–114. The pants were in fact extensively soiled 

with mud and reddish stains, only small portions of which 

are blood. 

In sum, considering “‘all the evidence,’” Schlup, 513 

U. S., at 328 (quoting Friendly, 38 U. Chi. L. Rev., at 160), 

on this issue, we think the evidentiary disarray surrounding the blood, taken together with Dr. Blake’s testimony

and the limited rebuttal of it in the present record, would

prevent reasonable jurors from placing significant reliance

on the blood evidence. We now know, though the trial jury 

did not, that an Assistant Chief Medical Examiner believes the blood on House’s jeans must have come from 

autopsy samples; that a vial and a quarter of autopsy

blood is unaccounted for; that the blood was transported to

the FBI together with the pants in conditions that could

have caused vials to spill; that the blood did indeed spill at 

least once during its journey from Tennessee authorities 

through FBI hands to a defense expert; that the pants

were stored in a plastic bag bearing both a large blood

stain and a label with TBI Agent Scott’s name; and that 

the styrofoam box containing the blood samples may well 

have been opened before it arrived at the FBI lab. Thus, 

whereas the bloodstains, emphasized by the prosecution, 

seemed strong evidence of House’s guilt at trial, the record 

now raises substantial questions about the blood’s origin. 

A Different Suspect 

Were House’s challenge to the State’s case limited to the

questions he has raised about the blood and semen, the

other evidence favoring the prosecution might well suffice

to bar relief. There is, however, more; for in the post-trial 

proceedings House presented troubling evidence that Mr. 

Muncey, the victim’s husband, himself could have been the 

murderer. 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 29 

Opinion of the Court 

At trial, as has been noted, the jury heard that roughly 

two weeks before the murder Mrs. Muncey’s brother received a frightened phone call from his sister indicating 

that she and Mr. Muncey had been fighting, that she was

scared, and that she wanted to leave him. The jury also 

learned that the brother once saw Mr. Muncey “smac[k]”

the victim. 7 Tr. 1087–1088. House now has produced

evidence from multiple sources suggesting that Mr. Muncey

regularly abused his wife. For example, one witness—

Kathy Parker, a lifelong area resident who denied any 

animosity towards Mr. Muncey—recalled that Mrs. Muncey

“was constantly with black eyes and busted mouth.” App.

235. In addition Hazel Miller, who is Kathy Parker’s 

mother and a lifelong acquaintance of Mr. Muncey, testified at the habeas hearing that two or three months before 

the victim’s death Mr. Muncey came to Miller’s home and 

“tried to get my daughter [Parker] to go out with him,”

R274:47. (Parker had dated Mr. Muncey at age 14.) According to Miller, Muncey said “[h]e was upset with his 

wife, that they had had an argument and he said he was

going to get rid of that woman one way or the other.” App. 

236. 

Another witness—Mary Atkins, also an area native who

“grew up” with Mr. Muncey and professed no hard feelings, R274:10, 16—claims she saw Mr. Muncey “backhan[d]” Mrs. Muncey on the very night of the murder. 

App. 226, 228. Atkins recalled that during a break in the 

recreation center dance, she saw Mr. Muncey and his wife

arguing in the parking lot. Mr. Muncey “grabbed her and 

he just backhanded her.” Id., at 228. After that, Mrs. 

Muncey “left walking.” Id., at 229. There was also testimony from Atkins’ mother, named Artie Lawson. A selfdescribed “good friend” of Mr. Muncey, id., at 231, Lawson 

said Mr. Muncey visited her the morning after the murder, before the body was found. According to Lawson, Mr.

Muncey asked her to tell anyone who inquired not only 
30 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

that she had been at the dance the evening before and had

seen him, but also that he had breakfasted at her home at 

6 o’clock that morning. Lawson had not in fact been at the 

dance, nor had Mr. Muncey been with her so early.

Of most importance is the testimony of Kathy Parker

and her sister Penny Letner. They testified at the habeas

hearing that, around the time of House’s trial, Mr. Muncey 

had confessed to the crime. Parker recalled that she and 

“some family members and some friends [were] sitting

around drinking” at Parker’s trailer when Mr. Muncey 

“just walked in and sit down.” R274:37. Muncey, who had

evidently been drinking heavily, began “rambling off . . . 

[t]alking about what happened to his wife and how it 

happened and he didn’t mean to do it.” Ibid. According to

Parker, Mr. Muncey “said they had been into [an] argument and he slapped her and she fell and hit her head and 

it killed her and he didn’t mean for it to happen.” Id., at 

38. Parker said she “freaked out and run him off.” Ibid. 

Letner similarly recalled that at some point either “during [House’s] trial or just before,” id., at 30, Mr. Muncey 

intruded on a gathering at Parker’s home. Appearing 

“pretty well blistered,” Muncey “went to crying and was

talking about his wife and her death and he was saying 

that he didn’t mean to do it.” App. 232. “[D]idn’t mean to

do what[?],” Letner asked, R274:33, at which point Mr. 

Muncey explained: 

“[S]he was ‘bitching him out’ because he didn’t take

her fishing that night, that he went to the dance instead. He said when he come home that she was still 

on him pretty heavily ‘bitching him out’ again and 

that he smacked her and that she fell and hit her 

head. He said I didn’t mean to do it, but I had to get 

rid of her, because I didn’t want to be charged with

murder.” App. 232–233. 

Letner, who was then 19 years old with a small child, 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 31 

Opinion of the Court 

said Mr. Muncey’s statement “scared [her] quite badly,” so

she “got out of there immediately.” Id., at 233. Asked 

whether she reported the incident to the authorities, 

Letner stated, “I was frightened, you know. . . . I figured 

me being 19 year old they wouldn’t listen to anything I 

had to say.” R274:31. Parker, on the other hand, claimed 

she (Parker) in fact went to the Sherriff’s Department, but

no one would listen: 

“I tried to speak to the Sheriff but he was real busy.

He sent me to a deputy. The deputy told me to go upstairs to the courtroom and talk to this guy, I can’t

remember his name. I never did really get to talk to 

anybody.” App. 234. 

Parker said she did not discuss the matter further because 

“[t]hey had it all signed, sealed and delivered. We didn’t 

know anything to do until we heard that they reopened 

[House’s] trial.” R274:45. Parker’s mother, Hazel Miller, 

confirmed she had driven Parker to the courthouse, where 

Parker “went to talk to some of the people about this case.” 

App. 237.

Other testimony suggests Mr. Muncey had the opportunity to commit the crime. According to Dennis Wallace, a

local law enforcement official who provided security at the

dance on the night of the murder, Mr. Muncey left the 

dance “around 10:00, 10:30, 9:30 to 10:30.” R274:56–57. 

Although Mr. Muncey told law enforcement officials just

after the murder that he left the dance only briefly and 

returned, Wallace could not recall seeing him back there 

again. Later that evening, Wallace responded to Mr.

Muncey’s report that his wife was missing. Muncey denied he and his wife had been “a fussing or a fighting”; he

claimed his wife had been “kidnapped.” Id., at 58. Wallace did not recall seeing any blood, disarray, or knockedover furniture, although he admitted he “didn’t pay too 

much attention” to whether the floor appeared especially 
32 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

clean. According to Wallace, Mr. Muncey said “let’s search

for her” and then led Wallace out to search “in the weeds” 

around the home and the driveway (not out on the road

where the body was found). Id., at 58, 60, 63. 

In the habeas proceedings, then, two different witnesses

(Parker and Letner) described a confession by Mr. 

Muncey; two more (Atkins and Lawson) described suspicious behavior (a fight and an attempt to construct a false

alibi) around the time of the crime; and still other witnesses described a history of abuse. 

As to Parker and Letner, the District Court noted that it 

was “not impressed with the allegations of individuals who

wait over ten years to come forward with their evidence,”

especially considering that “there was no physical evidence in the Munceys’ kitchen to corroborate [Mr.

Muncey’s] alleged confession that he killed [his wife]

there.” App. 348. Parker and Letner, however, did attempt to explain their delay coming forward, and the 

record indicates no reason why these two women, both

lifelong acquaintances of Mr. Muncey, would have wanted

either to frame him or to help House. Furthermore, the 

record includes at least some independent support for the 

statements Parker and Letner attributed to Mr. Muncey. 

The supposed explanation for the fatal fight—that his wife 

was complaining about going fishing—fits with Mrs.

Muncey’s statement to Luttrell earlier that evening that

her husband’s absence was “all right, because she was

going to make him take her fishing the next day,” id., at 

11–12. And Dr. Blake testified, in only partial contradiction of Dr. Carabia, that Mrs. Muncey’s head injury resulted from “a surface with an edge” or “a hard surface 

with a corner,” not from a fist. R275:72. (Dr. Carabia had 

said either a fist or some other object could have been the 

cause.)

Mr. Muncey testified at the habeas hearing, and the

District Court did not question his credibility. Though Mr. 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 33 

Opinion of the Court 

Muncey said he seemed to remember visiting Lawson the 

day after the murder, he denied either killing his wife or 

confessing to doing so. Yet Mr. Muncey also claimed,

contrary to Constable Wallace’s testimony and to his own

prior statement, that he left the dance on the night of the

crime only when it ended at midnight. Mr. Muncey, moreover, denied ever hitting Mrs. Muncey; the State itself had 

to impeach him with a prior statement on this point. 

It bears emphasis, finally, that Parker’s and Letner’s

testimony is not comparable to the sort of eleventh-hour 

affidavit vouching for a defendant and incriminating a

conveniently absent suspect that Justice O’Connor described in her concurring opinion in Herrera as “unfortunate” and “not uncommon” in capital cases, 506 U. S., at 

423; nor was the confession Parker and Letner described 

induced under pressure of interrogation. The confession 

evidence here involves an alleged spontaneous statement 

recounted by two eyewitnesses with no evident motive to

lie. For this reason it has more probative value than, for 

example, incriminating testimony from inmates, suspects, 

or friends or relations of the accused. 

The evidence pointing to Mr. Muncey is by no means 

conclusive. If considered in isolation, a reasonable jury

might well disregard it. In combination, however, with the 

challenges to the blood evidence and the lack of motive with 

respect to House, the evidence pointing to Mr. Muncey 

likely would reinforce other doubts as to House’s guilt. 

Other Evidence 

Certain other details were presented at the habeas

hearing. First, Dr. Blake, in addition to testifying about

the blood evidence and the victim’s head injury, examined 

photographs of House’s bruises and scratches and concluded, based on 35 years’ experience monitoring the

development and healing of bruises, that they were too old 

to have resulted from the crime. In addition Dr. Blake 
34 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

claimed that the injury on House’s right knuckle was 

indicative of “[g]etting mashed”; it was not consistent with

striking someone. R275:63. (That of course would also

eliminate the explanation that the injury came from the 

blow House supposedly told Turner he gave to his unidentified assailant.) 

The victim’s daughter, Lora Muncey (now Lora Tharp), 

also testified at the habeas hearing. She repeated her 

recollection of hearing a man with a deep voice like her 

grandfather’s and a statement that her father had had a

wreck down by the creek. She also denied seeing any 

signs of struggle or hearing a fight between her parents, 

though she also said she could not recall her parents ever

fighting physically. The District Court found her credible, 

and this testimony certainly cuts in favor of the State. 

Finally, House himself testified at the habeas proceedings. He essentially repeated the story he allegedly told

Turner about getting attacked on the road. The District 

Court found, however, based on House’s demeanor, that he 

“was not a credible witness.” App. 329. 

Conclusion 

This is not a case of conclusive exoneration. Some aspects of the State’s evidence—Lora Muncey’s memory of a 

deep voice, House’s bizarre evening walk, his lie to law 

enforcement, his appearance near the body, and the blood 

on his pants—still support an inference of guilt. Yet the 

central forensic proof connecting House to the crime—the 

blood and the semen—has been called into question, and 

House has put forward substantial evidence pointing to a

different suspect. Accordingly, and although the issue is 

close, we conclude that this is the rare case where—had 

the jury heard all the conflicting testimony—it is more

likely than not that no reasonable juror viewing the record 

as a whole would lack reasonable doubt. 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 35 

Opinion of the Court

V 

In addition to his gateway claim under Schlup, House 

argues that he has shown freestanding innocence and that

as a result his imprisonment and planned execution are 

unconstitutional. In Herrera, decided three years before 

Schlup, the Court assumed without deciding that “in a

capital case a truly persuasive demonstration of ‘actual

innocence’ made after trial would render the execution of a 

defendant unconstitutional, and warrant federal habeas 

relief if there were no state avenue open to process such a 

claim.” 506 U. S., at 417; see also id., at 419 (O’Connor, J., 

concurring) (“I cannot disagree with the fundamental legal 

principle that executing the innocent is inconsistent with

the Constitution”). “[T]he threshold showing for such an 

assumed right would necessarily be extraordinarily high,”

the Court explained, and petitioner’s evidence there fell

“far short of that which would have to be made in order to 

trigger the sort of constitutional claim which we have 

assumed, arguendo, to exist.” Id., at 417, 418–419; see 

also id., at 427 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (noting that 

because “[p]etitioner has failed to make a persuasive

showing of actual innocence,” “the Court has no reason to 

pass on, and appropriately reserves, the question whether 

federal courts may entertain convincing claims of actual 

innocence”). House urges the Court to answer the question left open in Herrera and hold not only that freestanding innocence claims are possible but also that he has

established one. 

We decline to resolve this issue. We conclude here, 

much as in Herrera, that whatever burden a hypothetical

freestanding innocence claim would require, this petitioner has not satisfied it. To be sure, House has cast 

considerable doubt on his guilt—doubt sufficient to satisfy 

Schlup’s gateway standard for obtaining federal review 

despite a state procedural default. In Herrera, however, 

the Court described the threshold for any hypothetical 
36 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of the Court 

freestanding innocence claim as “extraordinarily high.” 

506 U. S., at 417. The sequence of the Court’s decisions in 

Herrera and Schlup—first leaving unresolved the status of 

freestanding claims and then establishing the gateway

standard—implies at the least that Herrera requires more 

convincing proof of innocence than Schlup. It follows, 

given the closeness of the Schlup question here, that 

House’s showing falls short of the threshold implied in 

Herrera. 

* * * 

House has satisfied the gateway standard set forth in 

Schlup and may proceed on remand with procedurally 

defaulted constitutional claims. The judgment of the

Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for

further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

It is so ordered. 

JUSTICE ALITO took no part in the consideration or 

decision of this case. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 1 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 04–8990 

PAUL GREGORY HOUSE, PETITIONER v. RICKY 

BELL, WARDEN

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

[June 12, 2006] 

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, with whom JUSTICE SCALIA 

and JUSTICE THOMAS join, concurring in the judgment in

part and dissenting in part. 

To overcome the procedural hurdle that Paul House

created by failing to properly present his constitutional

claims to a Tennessee court, he must demonstrate that the 

constitutional violations he alleges “ha[ve] probably resulted in the conviction of one who is actually innocent,”

such that a federal court’s refusal to hear the defaulted 

claims would be a “miscarriage of justice.” Schlup v. Delo, 

513 U. S. 298, 326, 327 (1995) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). To make the requisite showing of actual innocence, House must produce “new reliable evidence” and 

“must show that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him in the light of the new

evidence.” Id., at 324, 327 (emphasis added). The question

is not whether House was prejudiced at his trial because the

jurors were not aware of the new evidence, but whether all 

the evidence, considered together, proves that House was 

actually innocent, so that no reasonable juror would vote to

convict him. Considering all the evidence, and giving due 

regard to the District Court’s findings on whether House’s

new evidence was reliable, I do not find it probable that no

reasonable juror would vote to convict him, and accordingly

I dissent. 
2 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

Because I do not think that House has satisfied the actual 

innocence standard set forth in Schlup, I do not believe that 

he has met the higher threshold for a freestanding innocence claim, assuming such a claim exists. See Herrera v. 

Collins, 506 U. S. 390, 417 (1993). I therefore concur in the 

judgment with respect to the Court’s disposition of that

separate claim. 

I 

In Schlup, we stated that a habeas petitioner attempting to present a defaulted claim to a federal court must 

present “new reliable evidence—whether it be exculpatory 

scientific evidence, trustworthy eyewitness accounts, or

critical physical evidence—that was not presented at 

trial.” 513 U. S., at 324 (emphasis added). Implicit in the

requirement that a habeas petitioner present reliable

evidence is the expectation that a factfinder will assess

reliability. The new evidence at issue in Schlup had not 

been subjected to such an assessment—the claim in 

Schlup was for an evidentiary hearing—and this Court 

specifically recognized that the “new statements may, of 

course, be unreliable.” Id., at 331. The Court stated that 

the District Court, as the “reviewing tribunal,” was tasked 

with assessing the “probative force” of the petitioner’s new

evidence of innocence, and “may have to make some credibility assessments.” Id., at 327–328, 330. Indeed, the 

Supreme Court took the unusual step of remanding the 

case to the Court of Appeals “with instructions to remand

to the District Court,” so that the District Court could 

consider how the “likely credibility of the affiants” bears

upon the “probable reliability” of the new evidence. Id., at 

332. In short, the new evidence is not simply taken at face 

value; its reliability has to be tested. 

Critical to the Court’s conclusion here that House has 

sufficiently demonstrated his innocence are three pieces of

new evidence presented to the District Court: DNA evi-
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 3 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

dence showing that the semen on Carolyn Muncey’s clothing was from her husband, Hubert Muncey, not from 

House; testimony from new witnesses implicating Mr.

Muncey in the murder; and evidence indicating that Mrs. 

Muncey’s blood spilled from test tubes containing autopsy 

samples in an evidence container. To determine whether 

it should open its door to House’s defaulted constitutional 

claims, the District Court considered this evidence in a 

comprehensive evidentiary hearing. As House presented 

his new evidence, and as the State rebutted it, the District 

Court observed the witnesses’ demeanor, examined physical evidence, and made findings about whether House’s

new evidence was in fact reliable. This factfinding role is

familiar to a district court. “The trial judge’s major role is

the determination of fact, and with experience in fulfilling

that role comes expertise.” Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 

U. S. 564, 574 (1985). 

The State did not contest House’s new DNA evidence 

excluding him as the source of the semen on Mrs. 

Muncey’s clothing, but it strongly contested the new testimony implicating Mr. Muncey, and it insisted that the 

blood spillage occurred after the FBI tested House’s jeans 

and determined that they were stained with Mrs. 

Muncey’s blood.

At the evidentiary hearing, sisters Kathy Parker and

Penny Letner testified that 14 years earlier, either during

or around the time of House’s trial, they heard Mr. 

Muncey drunkenly confess to having accidentally killed 

his wife when he struck her in their home during an argument, causing her to fall and hit her head. Record, Doc. 

274, pp. 28–29, 30, 37–38. Schlup provided guidance on 

how a district court should assess this type of new evidence: The court “may consider how the timing of the

submission and the likely credibility of the affiants bear

on the probable reliability of that evidence,” and it “must 

assess the probative force of the newly presented evidence 
4 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

in connection with the evidence of guilt adduced at trial.”

513 U. S., at 332. Consistent with this guidance, the 

District Court concluded that the sisters’ testimony was

not credible. The court noted that it was “not impressed

with the allegations of individuals who wait over ten years

to come forward.” App. 348. It also considered how the 

new testimony fit within the larger web of evidence, observing that Mr. Muncey’s alleged confession contradicted 

the testimony of the Munceys’ “very credible” daughter, 

Lora Tharp, who consistently testified that she did not 

hear a fight in the house that night, but instead heard a

man with a deep voice who lured her mother from the 

house by saying that Mr. Muncey had been in a wreck

near the creek. Id., at 323, 348. 

The District Court engaged in a similar reliability inquiry with regard to House’s new evidence of blood spillage. At the evidentiary hearing, House conceded that FBI 

testing showed that his jeans were stained with Mrs.

Muncey’s blood, but he set out to prove that the blood 

spilled from test tubes containing autopsy samples, and 

that it did so before the jeans were tested by the FBI. The 

District Court summarized the testimony of the various 

witnesses who handled the evidence and their recollections about bloodstains and spillage; it acknowledged that 

House’s expert, Dr. Cleland Blake, disagreed with FBI 

Agent Paul Bigbee about how to interpret the results of 

Agent Bigbee’s genetic marker analysis summary; and it 

summarized the testimony of the State’s blood spatter 

expert, Paulette Sutton. Id., at 339–347. After reviewing

all the evidence, the District Court stated: “Based upon

the evidence introduced during the evidentiary hearing . . . 

the court concludes that the spillage occurred after the 

FBI crime laboratory received and tested the evidence.” 

Id., at 348 (emphasis added). 

Normally, an appellate court reviews a district court’s

factual findings only for clear error. See Fed. Rule Civ. 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 5 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

Proc. 52(a) (“Findings of fact, whether based on oral or 

documentary evidence, shall not be set aside unless clearly 

erroneous, and due regard shall be given to the opportunity of the trial court to judge of the credibility of the

witnesses”); Bessemer City, supra, at 574 (clearly erroneous

standard applies “even when the district court’s findings do

not rest on credibility determinations, but are based instead 

on physical or documentary evidence or inferences from

other facts”). The Sixth Circuit deferred to the District 

Court’s factual findings, 386 F. 3d 668, 684 (2004), and 

Schlup did not purport to alter—but instead reaffirmed

and highlighted—the district court’s critical role as factfinder. Yet the majority asserts that the clear error standard “overstates the effect of the District Court’s ruling,” 

and then dismisses the District Court’s reliability findings 

because it is “uncertain about” them, while stopping short 

of identifying clear error. Ante, at 20. This is a sharp 

departure from the guidance in Schlup. 

In Schlup, we contrasted a district court’s role in assessing the reliability of new evidence of innocence with a

district court’s role in deciding a summary judgment

motion. 513 U. S., at 332. We explained that, in the latter 

situation, the district court does not assess credibility or 

weigh the evidence, but simply determines whether there

is a genuine factual issue for trial. Ibid. Assessing the 

reliability of new evidence, on the other hand, is a typical

factfinding role, requiring credibility determinations and a

weighing of the “probative force” of the new evidence in

light of “the evidence of guilt adduced at trial.” Ibid. We 

found it “obviou[s]” that a habeas court conducting an

actual innocence inquiry must do more than simply check 

whether there are genuine factual issues for trial. Ibid. 

The point of the actual innocence inquiry is for the federal

habeas court to satisfy itself that it should suspend the

normal procedural default rule, disregard the important

judicial interests of finality and comity, and allow a state 
6 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

prisoner to present his defaulted constitutional claims to a 

federal court. See McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467, 490– 

491 (1991).

The majority surprisingly states that this guidance is

inapplicable here because this case involves a “fully developed record,” while the district court in Schlup had declined to conduct an evidentiary hearing. Ante, at 17–18. 

But the guidance is clearly applicable: The point in Schlup

was not simply that a hearing was required, but why—

because the district court had to assess the probative force

of the petitioner’s newly presented evidence, by engaging 

in factfinding rather than performing a summary judgment-type inquiry. 513 U. S., at 331–332. That is precisely what the District Court did here. In addition to a 

“fully developed record,” we have the District Court’s 

factual findings about the reliability of the new evidence

in that record, factual findings which the majority disregards without finding clear error. 

The majority essentially disregards the District Court’s 

role in assessing the reliability of House’s new evidence. 

With regard to the sisters’ testimony, the majority casts 

aside the District Court’s determination that their statements came too late and were too inconsistent with credible record evidence to be reliable, instead observing that 

the women had no obvious reason to lie, that a few aspects

of their testimony have record support, and that they

recounted an uncoerced confession. Ante, at 32–33. As for 

the District Court’s express finding that the autopsy blood 

spilled after the FBI tested House’s jeans, the majority 

points to Dr. Blake’s testimony that blood enzymes “are 

generally better preserved on cloth,” and even conjures up 

its own theory in an attempt to refute Ms. Sutton’s expert

testimony that the pattern of some bloodstains was consistent with blood being transferred while the pants were

being worn. Ante, at 27 (“This should be a matter for the 

trier of fact to consider in the first instance, but we can 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 7 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

note a line of argument that could refute the State’s position . . . [Ms. Sutton’s] testimony . . . does not refute the

hypothesis that the packaging of the pants for transport

was what caused them to be folded or creased”); see App.

296. 

The majority’s assessment of House’s new evidence is

precisely the summary judgment-type inquiry Schlup said 

was inappropriate. 513 U. S., at 332. By casting aside the 

District Court’s factual determinations made after a comprehensive evidentiary hearing, the majority has done 

little more than reiterate the factual disputes presented 

below. Witnesses do not testify in our courtroom, and it is 

not our role to make credibility findings and construct 

theories of the possible ways in which Mrs. Muncey’s blood

could have been spattered and wiped on House’s jeans.

The District Court did not painstakingly conduct an evidentiary hearing to compile a record for us to sort through

transcript by transcript and photograph by photograph,

assessing for ourselves the reliability of what we see. 

Schlup made abundantly clear that reliability determinations were essential, but were for the district court to 

make. 513 U. S., at 331–332. We are to defer to the better 

situated District Court on reliability, unless we determine 

that its findings are clearly erroneous. We are not concerned with “the district court’s independent judgment as

to whether reasonable doubt exists,” id., at 329, but the 

District Court here made basic factual findings about the 

reliability of House’s new evidence; it did not offer its 

personal opinion about whether it doubted House’s guilt. 

Schlup makes clear that those findings are controlling 

unless clearly erroneous. 

I have found no clear error in the District Court’s reliability findings. Not having observed Ms. Parker and Ms. 

Letner testify, I would defer to the District Court’s determination that they are not credible, and the evidence in

the record undermining the tale of an accidental killing 
8 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

during a fight in the Muncey home convinces me that this

credibility finding is not clearly erroneous. Dr. Alex Carabia, who performed the autopsy, testified to injuries far

more severe than a bump on the head: Mrs. Muncey had 

bruises on the front and back of her neck, on both thighs, 

on her lower right leg and left knee, and her hands were

bloodstained up to the wrists; her injuries were consistent

with a struggle and traumatic strangulation. Record, 

Addendum 4, 7 Tr. of Evidence in No. 378 (Crim. Ct. Union County, Tenn.) 984–987 (hereinafter Tr.) And, of 

course, Lora Tharp has consistently recalled a deep-voiced 

visitor arriving late at night to tell Mrs. Muncey that her 

husband was in a wreck near the creek. App. 19, 270. 

I also find abundant evidence in the record to support 

the District Court’s finding that blood spilled within the 

evidence container after the FBI received and tested 

House’s jeans. Agent Bigbee testified that there was no

leakage in the items submitted to him for testing. Id., at 

277. The majority’s entire analysis on this point assumes 

the agent flatly lied, though there was no attack on his 

credibility below. Moreover, Ms. Sutton determined, in 

her expert opinion, that the wide distribution of stains

“front and back, top to bottom,” the fact that some bloodstains were mixed with mud, and the presence of bloodstains inside the pocket and inside the fly, showed that the

blood was spattered and wiped—not spilled—on House’s

jeans. Id., at 291–293, 295; id., at 293 (“[I]f a tube of blood

had spilled on these pants, the stain should have been in a 

localized area”); id., at 294 (“The stains also . . . either 

originate on the inside and don’t soak out or on the outside 

and are not soaking to the inside. That, of course, would 

be what you would see with a spill”).

It is also worth noting that the blood evidently spilled 

inside the evidence container when the jeans were protected inside a plastic zip lock bag, as shown by the presence of a bloodstain on the outside of that bag. See Re-
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 9 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

cord, Plt. Exh. 10–6. House’s expert tested the exterior

and interior of that plastic bag for bloodstains using an

“extremely sensitive” test, and only the exterior of the bag 

tested positive for blood. Id., Doc. 274, at 95–96. The 

evidence in the record indicates that the jeans were placed

in the plastic bag after they arrived at the FBI: FBI records show that the jeans arrived there in a paper bag,

and the plastic bag has FBI markings on it. Id., Addendum 2, Trial Exh. 31, p. 36; id., Plt. Exh. 10–6. The bloodstain on the outside of the plastic bag therefore further

supports the District Court’s conclusion that the blood

spilled after the evidence was received and tested by the 

FBI, and not en route when the jeans were in a paper bag. 

I suppose it is theoretically possible that the jeans were

contaminated by spillage before arriving at the FBI, that

Agent Bigbee either failed to note or lied about such spillage, and that the FBI then transferred the jeans into a

plastic bag and put them back inside the evidence container with the spilled blood still sloshing around sufficiently to contaminate the outside of the plastic bag as

extensively as it did. This sort of unbridled speculation 

can theoretically defeat any inconvenient fact, but does

not suffice to convince me that the District Court’s factual 

finding—that the blood spilled after FBI testing—was 

clearly erroneous.

Moreover, the yellow “Tennessee Crime Lab” tape

placed around the container on all four sides does not line 

up when the bloodstained corners of the container and its

lid are aligned, showing that the blood did not spill until 

sometime after the container was received and opened at

its first destination—the FBI. See id., Respondent’s Exh.

24; id., Doc. 276, pp. 190–191 (testimony of Paulette Sutton). The majority points out that on one side of the container, the first of two layers of tape appears to begin 

cleanly at the lid’s edge, and from this concludes that the 

container must have been cut open and resealed by Ten-
10 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

nessee authorities en route to the FBI. Ante, at 25; see 

Record, Respondent’s Exh. 23d. Even if the majority’s

deduction from a photograph of the container were true, it

would show only that Tennessee authorities had reason to

open the container once it was sealed to take something

out or put something in, perhaps back at the crime lab in

Union County. But even if the container had been opened 

before its arrival at the FBI, the majority recognizes that 

it was resealed with “Tennessee Crime Lab” tape, and the 

second layer of tape aligns only when the bloodstains on

the container and its lid do not. Ante, at 24–25. Of course, 

the District Court—which concluded that the blood was 

spilled after testing at the FBI laboratory—had before it 

the box itself with the tape as the witnesses testified on

the point, and not—like this Court—simply a photograph.

See Bessemer City, 470 U. S., at 574 (district court’s findings about physical evidence are reviewed for clear error). 

House’s theory that the blood on his jeans was transferred there from the autopsy samples is based on Dr. 

Blake’s reading of Agent Bigbee’s enzyme marker analysis 

summary. After reading the summary, Dr. Blake concluded that the enzymes in the bloodstains on House’s 

jeans and the enzymes in the autopsy samples had deteriorated to the same extent. Record, Doc. 275, p. 110. In 

particular, he noted that the GLO1 enzyme showed “incomplete penetration” on both the autopsy blood and the

jeans, and because enzymes are better preserved on cloth, 

the enzyme should have been present on the jeans. Id., at 

116. But Agent Bigbee disputed Dr. Blake’s reading of 

what was, after all, Agent Bigbee’s own study. He testified that “‘inc’” on his chart meant “inconclusive,” not 

“incomplete penetration,” and that the term “inconclusive” 

meant that the enzyme was present, but could not be

grouped into an ABO bloodtype. Id., Doc. 276, at 140. 

While pointing out that his summary showed different

levels of enzymes in the two samples, Agent Bigbee also 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 11 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

noted that many different factors—such as heat, dirt, or 

bacteria in a clothes hamper—could cause enzymes to 

degrade on cloth. Id., at 139, 167–170. Considering how

House’s new blood spillage evidence fits within the record 

as a whole, I can see no clear error in the District Court’s 

express finding that the blood spilled in the evidence 

container after the FBI found Mrs. Muncey’s blood on 

House’s jeans.

The District Court attentively presided over a complex 

evidentiary hearing, often questioning witnesses extensively during the presentation of critical evidence. See, 

e.g., id., Doc. 275, at 110–115. The court concisely summarized the evidence presented, then dutifully made

findings about the reliability of the testimony it heard and 

the evidence it observed. We are poorly equipped to second-guess the District Court’s reliability findings and

should defer to them, consistent with the guidance we

provided in Schlup. 

II 

With due regard to the District Court’s reliability findings, this case invites a straightforward application of the 

legal standard adopted in Schlup. A petitioner does not 

pass through the Schlup gateway if it is “more likely than 

not that there is any juror who, acting reasonably, would 

have found the petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

513 U. S., at 333 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (emphasis

added). 

The majority states that if House had presented just one

of his three key pieces of evidence—or even two of the

three—he would not pass through the Schlup gateway. 

See ante, at 28 (“Were House’s challenge to the State’s 

case limited to the questions he has raised about the blood 

and semen, the other evidence favoring the prosecution 

might well suffice to bar relief”); ante, at 33 (“If considered 

in isolation, a reasonable jury might well disregard [the 
12 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

evidence pointing to Mr. Muncey]. In combination, however, with the challenges to the blood evidence and the 

lack of motive with respect to House, the evidence pointing 

to Mr. Muncey likely would reinforce other doubts as to 

House’s guilt”). According to the majority, House has 

picked the trifecta of evidence that places conviction outside the realm of choices any juror, acting reasonably, 

would make. Because the case against House remains 

substantially unaltered from the case presented to the 

jury, I disagree.

At trial, the State presented its story about what happened on the night of Mrs. Muncey’s murder. The 

Munceys’ daughter heard a deep-voiced perpetrator arrive

at the Muncey home late at night and tell Mrs. Muncey 

that her husband had been in a wreck near the creek. 

App. 19. Ms. Tharp relayed her testimony again at the 

evidentiary hearing, and the District Court determined

that she was a “very credible witness.” Id., at 270, 323. 

When police questioned House after witnesses reported

seeing him emerge from the embankment near Mrs.

Muncey’s body shortly before it was discovered, he told 

two different officers that he never left Donna Turner’s 

trailer the previous evening, even recounting the series of 

television programs he watched before going to bed. 7 Tr. 

963–965, 1031–1032. He had worked to concoct an alibi 

we now know was a lie. On the day Mrs. Muncey’s body

was found, Bill Breeding, a criminal investigator at the 

Union County Sheriff’s Office, observed House at the local 

jail and noticed that he had abrasions “across his knuckles

and about his hands,” two or three bruises on his right 

arm, scratches on his chest, and his right ring finger was 

red and swollen. 6 id., at 801–802. The interviewing 

officers noticed similar injuries. App. 78–80; 7 Tr. 974–

975. House told them that his finger was swollen because 

he fell off a porch, and the scratches and bruises were 

from tearing down a building, and from a cat. Ibid. Ms. 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 13 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

Turner initially confirmed House’s alibi, but she changed

her story when police warned her that covering up a homicide was a serious offense. Id., at 1063. Ms. Turner then 

told police that House had in fact left her house that night 

between 10:30 and 10:45 p.m. Id., at 1062–1063. He came 

back some time later panting and sweating, shirtless and 

shoeless, and with various injuries. App. 88–91; 8 Tr. 

1154–1155. 

Also on the day the body was found, Sheriff Earl Loy

asked House if he was wearing the same clothes he wore 

the night before. 6 id., at 845. House “hesitated,” then 

stated that he had changed his shirt, but not his jeans. 

Ibid. In other words, he specifically tried to conceal from

the police that he had worn other jeans the night before,

for reasons that were to become clear. Ms. Turner revealed that House’s statement that he had not changed his

jeans was a lie, and police retrieved House’s dirty jeans

from Ms. Turner’s hamper. Ibid. Of course, FBI testing 

revealed that House’s jeans were stained with Mrs. 

Muncey’s blood, and the District Court determined that 

House’s new evidence of blood spillage did not undermine 

those test results. App. 348. If in fact Mrs. Muncey’s

blood only got on House’s jeans from later evidentiary 

spillage, House would have had no reason to lie to try to 

keep the existence of the concealed jeans from the police. 

Through Ms. Turner’s testimony at trial, the jury also

heard House’s story about what happened that night. He 

left Ms. Turner’s trailer late at night to go for a walk. Id., 

at 86. When he returned some time later—panting,

sweating, and missing his shirt and shoes—he told her 

that some men in a truck tried to kill him. Id., at 88–91. 

When Ms. Turner asked House about his injuries, he 

attributed them to fighting with his assailants. Id., at 90; 

8 Tr. 1154–1155. House retold this story to the District 

Court, saying that he initially lied to police because he 

was on parole and did not want to draw attention to him-
14 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

self. Record, Doc. 276, at 99, 108–109. In other words, 

having nothing to hide and facing a murder charge, House 

lied—and when he was caught in the lie, he said he lied 

not to escape the murder charge, but solely to avoid unexplained difficulties with his parole officer. The jury rejected House’s story about the night’s events, and the

District Court “considered Mr. House’s demeanor and 

found that he was not a credible witness.” App. 329.

The jury also heard House’s attempt to implicate Mr. 

Muncey in his wife’s murder by calling Mrs. Muncey’s 

brother, Ricky Green, as a witness. Mr. Green testified 

that two weeks before the murder, his sister called him to 

say that she and Mr. Muncey had been fighting, that she

wanted to leave him, and that she was scared. 7 Tr. 1088. 

Mr. Green also testified that the Munceys had marital

problems, and that he had previously seen Mr. Muncey hit 

his wife. Id., at 1087. The jury rejected House’s attempt 

to implicate Mr. Muncey, and the District Court was not

persuaded by House’s attempt to supplement this evidence 

at the evidentiary hearing, finding that his new witnesses

were not credible. App. 348.

Noticeably absent from the State’s story about what

happened to Mrs. Muncey on the night of her death was 

much mention of the semen found on Mrs. Muncey’s clothing. House’s single victory at the evidentiary hearing was

new DNA evidence proving that the semen was deposited 

by Mr. Muncey. The majority identifies the semen evidence as “[c]entral to the State’s case” against House, ante, 

at 8, but House’s jury would probably be quite surprised 

by this characterization. At trial, Agent Bigbee testified 

that from the semen stains on Mrs. Muncey’s clothing, he 

could determine that the man who deposited the semen 

had type A blood, and was a secretor. App. 54–56. Agent 

Bigbee also testified that House and Mr. Muncey both

have type A blood, that House is a secretor, and that

“[t]here is an eighty (80%) percent chance that [Mr. 
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 15 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

Muncey] is a secretor.” Id., at 55–56; 6 Tr. 952 (emphasis 

added). Moreover, Agent Bigbee informed the jury that 

because 40 percent of people have type A blood, and 80 

percent of those people are secretors, the semen on Mrs. 

Muncey’s clothing could have been deposited by roughly 

one out of every three males. Id., at 957. The jury was 

also informed several times by the defense that Mrs.

Muncey’s body was found fully clothed. See, e.g., 4 id., at 

628; 9 id., at 1274. 

The majority describes House’s sexual motive as “a 

central theme in the State’s narrative linking House to the 

crime,” and states that without the semen evidence, “a 

jury . . . would have found it necessary to establish some 

different motive, or, if the same motive, an intent far more 

speculative.” Ante, at 21. The State, however, consistently directed the jury’s attention away from motive, and 

sexual motive was far from a “central theme” of the State’s 

case—presumably because of the highly ambiguous nature 

of the semen evidence recounted above. The Tennessee 

Supreme Court did not mention that evidence in cataloging the “[p]articularly incriminating” or “[d]amaging”

evidence against House. App. 135. The State did not 

mention the semen evidence in its opening statement to

the jury, instead focusing on premeditation. 4 Tr. 613– 

615. The defense used its opening statement to expose

lack of motive as a weakness in the State’s case. Id., at 

628. After the State’s equivocal presentation of the semen

evidence through Agent Bigbee’s testimony at trial, the 

State again made no reference to the semen evidence or to 

a motive in its closing argument, prompting the defense to 

again highlight this omission. 9 id., at 1274 (“[W]hy was

Carolyn Muncey killed? We don’t know. Is it important to

have some motive? In your minds? What motive did Paul 

Gregory House have to go over and kill a woman that he 

barely knew? Who was still dressed, still clad in her 

clothes”). 
16 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

In rebuttal, the State disclaimed any responsibility 

to prove motive, again shifting the jury’s focus to

premeditation: 

“The law says that if you take another person’s life, 

you beat them, you strangle them, and then you don’t 

succeed, and then you kill them by giving them multiple blows to the head, and one massive blow to the

head, and that that causes their brains to crash 

against the other side of their skull, and caused such 

severe bleeding inside the skull itself, that you die—

that it does not make any difference under God’s

heaven, what the motive was. That is what the law 

is. The law is that if motive is shown, it can be considered by the jury as evidence of guilt. But the law is 

that if you prove that a killing was done, beyond a 

reasonable doubt, by a person, and that he premeditated it, he planned it, it is not necessary for the jury 

to conclude why he did it.” App. 106. 

As a follow-up to this explanation, when the trial was 

almost over and only in response to the defense’s consistent prodding, the State made its first and only reference

to a possible motive, followed immediately by another 

disclaimer: 

“Now, you may have an idea why he did it. The evidence at the scene which seemed to suggest that he

was subjecting this lady to some kind of indignity,

why would you get a lady out of her house, late at

night, in her night clothes, under the trick that her 

husband has had a wreck down by the creek? . . . Why 

is it that you choke her? Why is it that you repeatedly 

beat her? Why is it that she has scrapes all over her 

body? Well, it is because either you don’t want her to

tell what indignities you have subjected her to, or she 

is unwilling and fights against you, against being subjected to those indignities. . . . That is what the evi-
Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 17 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

dence at the scene suggests about motive. But motive 

is not an element of the crime. It is something that

you can consider, or ignore. Whatever you prefer.

The issue is not motive. The issue is premeditation.” 

Id., at 106–107. 

It is on this “obliqu[e]” reference to the semen evidence

during the State’s closing argument that the majority 

bases its assertion that House’s sexual motive was a “central theme in the State’s narrative.” Ante, at 11, 21. 

Although it is possible that one or even some jurors might 

have entertained doubt about House’s guilt absent the 

clearest evidence of motive, I do not find it more likely

than not that every juror would have done so, and that is

the legal standard under Schlup. The majority aphoristically states that “[w]hen identity is in question, motive is

key.” Ante, at 21. Not at all. Sometimes, when identity is

in question, alibi is key. Here, House came up with one—

and it fell apart, later admitted to be fabricated when his

girlfriend would not lie to protect him. Scratches from a 

cat, indeed. Surely a reasonable juror would give the fact 

that an alibi had been made up and discredited significant 

weight. People facing a murder charge, who are innocent, 

do not make up a story out of concern that the truth might 

somehow disturb their parole officer. And people do not

lie to the police about which jeans they were wearing the

night of a murder, if they have no reason to believe the 

jeans would be stained with the blood shed by the victim 

in her last desperate struggle to live. 

In Schlup, we made clear that the standard we adopted

requires a “stronger showing than that needed to establish

prejudice.” 513 U. S., at 327. In other words, House must 

show more than just a “reasonable probability that . . . the

factfinder would have had a reasonable doubt respecting 

guilt.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 695 (1984). 

House must present such compelling evidence of innocence 
18 HOUSE v. BELL 

Opinion of ROBERTS, C. J. 

that it becomes more likely than not that no single juror, 

acting reasonably, would vote to convict him. Schlup, 

supra, at 329. The majority’s conclusion is that given the

sisters’ testimony (if believed), and Dr. Blake’s rebutted 

testimony about how to interpret Agent Bigbee’s enzyme 

marker analysis summary (if accepted), combined with the 

revelation that the semen on Mrs. Muncey’s clothing was 

deposited by her husband (which the jurors knew was just 

as likely as the semen having been deposited by House), 

no reasonable juror would vote to convict House. Ante, at 

34. Given the District Court’s reliability findings about

the first two pieces of evidence, the evidence before us now 

is not substantially different from that considered by

House’s jury. I therefore find it more likely than not that

in light of this new evidence, at least one juror, acting

reasonably, would vote to convict House. The evidence as 

a whole certainly does not establish that House is actually

innocent of the crime of murdering Carolyn Muncey, and 

accordingly I dissent.