In an inter­view with The Marshall Project, Texas death penal­ty juror Sven Berger says he would not have vot­ed to sen­tence cap­i­tal defen­dant Paul Storey to death in 2008 had he known about Storey’s ​“bor­der­line intel­lec­tu­al func­tion­ing,” his­to­ry of depres­sion, and oth­er evi­dence that Storey’s lawyer failed to present at tri­al. Berger and 11 oth­er Texas jurors unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to sen­tence Storey to death, but Berger says that at the time of jury delib­er­a­tions he did not believe Storey would pose a con­tin­u­ing dan­ger to soci­ety if incar­cer­at­ed — a fact that is a pre­req­ui­site to impos­ing the death penal­ty in Texas. Berger says ​“I just did­n’t get the feel­ing he was dan­ger­ous.… But the oth­er jurors seemed anx­ious to deliv­er the death penal­ty” and in the high­ly stress­ful cir­cum­stances of death penal­ty delib­er­a­tions, Berger went along with the oth­er jurors. In the inter­view, Berger shared his expe­ri­ence say­ing, ​“If I could have done any­thing, it would have been to dead­lock the jury, but I didn’t have the per­son­al strength to do it … at the time, I was real­ly uncom­fort­able speak­ing out.” He said that, after the ver­dict, ​“I felt guilty about what hap­pened. And sad. And a lit­tle help­less. … Eventually I start­ed say­ing, ​‘I don’t think I made the right call.’ ” Two years lat­er, Berger was con­tact­ed by a lawyer work­ing on Storey’s appeal who showed him a psy­chol­o­gist’s report explain­ing Storey’s back­ground and men­tal health issues. Berger wrote in an affi­davit that had he heard this evi­dence, ​“I would not have vot­ed for the death penalty.”

(S. Berger as told to M. Chammah, ​“My Regrets as a Juror Who Sent a Man to Death Row,” The Marshall Project, March 10, 2016.) See New Voices.

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