Attorneys for a Tarrant County man on death row have filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court asking for a new punishment hearing after allegations that prosecutors lied during his trial.
Paul David Storey, 40, has been on death row since 2008. He was one of two men convicted of capital murder after killing mini golf course manager Jonas Cherry during a robbery two years prior. The other man, Mark Porter, pleaded guilty and got life in prison.
During Storey's trial, then-prosecutor Christy Jack told the jury Cherry's family wanted the death penalty for Storey, but his family denied ever wanting Storey to die for the crime, KERA previously reported.
Storey's initial execution date was set for April 2017 but the court granted a stay of execution to investigate whether the prosecution violated due process, according to the petition.
Attorney Keith Hampton started representing Storey around the time he was supposed to be executed.
"Now, at that point, the state was seeking to have him executed," Hampton said. "Everything's different now. The state is not seeking to have him executed which is why he doesn't have an execution date."
The petition filed this month is not the first time Storey's attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case.
The court denied the petition in 2022 but Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote at the time the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals "got it wrong.”
"Its illogical rule conflicts with this Court’s precedent, and it rewards prosecutors who successfully conceal their Brady and Napue violations by creating a procedure wherein prosecutors can run out the clock and escape any responsibility for all but the most extreme violations," she wrote, referencing due process cases.
Later that year, the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office, which had prosecuted Storey, filed for the Supreme Court to reconsider his petition citing "substantive claims" from Storey.
Storey's petition to avoid the death penalty comes the same month the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence delayed the execution of Robert Roberson, who is on death row for capital murder over a "shaken baby syndrome" case experts say is not supported by scientific evidence.
Roberson was set to be executed Thursday, but in an unprecedented legal move, state lawmakers called on Roberson to testify in front of the committee Monday in order to delay that execution.
However, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton blocked Roberson’s in-person appearance, and his lawyers declined to have him speak remotely.
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