March 21 (UPI) -- A Texas killer set to die in the state's lethal injection chamber in three weeks could possibly get a last-minute reprieve -- from his victim's family.
Paul Storey is scheduled for execution on April 12 for the murder of a manager at a miniature golf course in Hurst, Texas, in October 2006.
He was convicted of shooting 28-year-old Jonas Cherry in the head and legs during the robbery, and sentenced to death. An accomplice pleaded guilty to charges and received life in prison.
Cherry's parents, however, say they do not want to see their son's killer put to death -- and prefer the sentence be commuted to life in prison.
"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," they said in a letter to Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson, Gov. Greg Abbott and other state officials. "We are satisfied that Paul Storey remaining in prison until his death will assure that he cannot murder another innocent person in the community, and with this outcome we are satisfied and convinced that lawful retribution is exercised concerning the death of our son."
It is not uncommon for relatives of capital murder victims to oppose the death penalty, as many feel spending one's life in prison is a tougher punishment than execution.
That decision, though, is no longer up to Wilson. On Monday, she asked that her entire office be recused from any further action in the case because one of her staff attorneys used to represent Storey. A Texas judge granted the request.
That means a special prosecutor must now decide whether to commute Storey's capital sentence. If he is put to death, it will be Texas' fifth execution so far in 2017. Four more are presently scheduled to die this year.
Storey, 32, has been on death row since 2008 and has exhausted all of his appeals. One juror who sentenced him to die by lethal injection has since said he regrets condemning the killer -- later saying that some information not presented at trial, like Storey's battle with depression and purportedly limited intellect, would have certainly led him to oppose execution.
Juries must vote unanimously to secure a death sentence. Storey's deliberated for only a couple hours before they made that decision.
"I didn't have the personal strength to do that," the juror, Sven Burger, said last year of his chance to deadlock the panel and force a life sentence. "The other jurors seemed anxious to deliver the death penalty.
"The decision says something about who you are, and a lot of people don't want to look at the part of themselves that's willing to kill someone, to send them to death."
Marilyn Shankle-Grant, Storey's mother, has expressed gratitude to Cherry's parents for leading an effort to spare her son.
"I think about how difficult it must have been for her at Christmas and Thanksgiving to have that empty chair at the table," she said. "They must have the heart of Jesus Christ himself to want to have anything to do with the life of someone who was involved in taking their own son's life.
"As devastating as what he did was, he's still my son. I still don't want to see him die."
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