28 March 2017 :

Texas Murder Victims' Parents Seek Death Sentence Commutation for Paul Storey. The parents of a man slain have signed an affidavit calling on the state not to execute one of the killers next month. Glenn and Judy Cherry, whose son Jonas Cherry was killed on Oct. 16, 2006 during a robbery, wrote a letter to state and local authorities requesting that Paul Storey’s death sentence be commuted to life without parole. The state has scheduled Storey's execution for April 12. In a letter to Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson, Gov. Greg Abbott, state District Judge Robb Catalano, and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, the Cherrys ask state officials to commute Storey's sentence to life without parole. They write, "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." The Cherrys are White, Storey is Black. Storey's commutation efforts have also drawn support from one of the jurors in his case, Sven Berger, who has provided an affidavit for the defense. Berger, a 36-year-old software engineer now living in Washington state, voted for the death penalty along with the other 11 jurors at the end of Storey’s trial in 2008. Berger says the jury was unaware of evidence of Storey's mental impairments at the time it rendered its verdict, and that, had that information been available, it would have affected his decision. He was also affected by learning that Tarrant County prosecutors had agreed to give Storey's co-defendant, Mike Porter, a plea deal for a life sentence. “It seemed clear to me that Porter was the leader,” Berger said. "It was infuriating to see Porter get life and Storey get death.” But most importantly, Berger said knowing the Cherrys' stance would have led him to vote differently because the prosecutor had misled jurors during the trial that the Cherrys wanted Storey to be sentenced to death. “If the family of the deceased did not want the perpetrator executed, that would have been important for me to know, and I believe it would have been important to the other jurors," Berger wrote. The Cherrys have also released a video explaining why they oppose Storey's execution and their desire to spare Storey's family the pain they felt at the loss of their son: "We have never been in favor of the death penalty. However, in the current situation before us, it pains us to think that, due to our son's death, another person will be purposefully put to death. Also motivating us, is that we do not want Paul Storey's family, especially his mother and grandmother, if she is still alive, to witness the purposeful execution of their son. They are innocent of his deeds." The Cherrys said they recently learned that Storey had been offered the same deal as Porter, but had turned it down.