Texas Court Stays Execution of Paul Storey Based on False Argument About Wishes of Victim’s Family

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has issued an order staying the scheduled April 12 execution of Paul Storey. The unpublished April 7 order sends Storey’s case back to the trial court to consider whether the prosecution knowingly presented false evidence about the victim’s family’s views on the death penalty.

Storey had been scheduled to be executed on April 12. His lawyers argued that “the State denied him his right to due process because it argued “evidence it knew to be false” when prosecutors told jurors that the family of victim Jonas Cherry supported a death sentence for Storey.

During the penalty phase of Storey’s trial, the prosecution argued that “[i]t should go without saying that all of Jonas [Cherry’s] family and everyone who loved him believe the death penalty was appropriate.” However, Cherry’s parents (pictured) say they always opposed the death penalty and had made their beliefs known to the prosecution at the time of Storey’s trial. They recently released a video and statement in support of clemency, saying “Paul Storey’s execution will not bring our son back, will not atone for the loss of our son and will not bring comfort or closure.”

Storey presented his claim as part of a second state post-conviction challenge to his death penalty. He faces the procedural hurdle of establishing that the evidence supporting this claim could not have been discovered “with the exercise of reasonable diligence” at the time he filed his initial post-conviction petition.

The stay continues a recent pattern of decisions by the Texas court permitting judicial review of claims that death sentences had been procured as a result of false or unreliable prosecutorial evidence or argument. In August 2015, the Court stayed Nicaraguan national Bernardo Tercero’s execution based on allegations that he had been “denied due process because the State presented false testimony at his trial.” In May 2016, the court stayed the execution of Charles Flores to permit him to challenge the use of scientifically unreliable hypnotically refreshed testimony. One month later, it stayed the execution of Robert Roberson to permit him to challenge the State’s use of “false, misleading, and scientifically invalid testimony” about Shaken Baby Syndrome. And in August 2016, the Court stayed the execution of Jeffery Wood to permit him to litigate a claim that prosecutors had presented false scientific evidence and false testimony from a discredited psychiatrist to persuade the jury that Wood would pose a future danger to society.