An emotional juror who had a tearful outburst, a non-expert witness suggesting roofies were involved, and two unrelated accusations of rape are among the errors Paul Flores and his attorney say occurred during his 2022 trial for the murder of Kristin Smart.

Paul Flores continues to fight his conviction for first degree murder in the killing of Kristin Smart, which likely occurred in the freshman dorms at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo over Memorial Day Weekend, 1996. Smart's body has never been found, which is partly why it took 26 years to bring Flores to trial, but prosecutors presented evidence that she had been buried under a deck at the Arroyo Grande home of Flores's father, Ruben Flores, and the body was then moved sometime shortly before authorities served a search warrant at the home in early 2020.

Flores was arrested in April 2021 and charged with Smart's murder, and both before and during the trial we learned about the wealth of circumstantial evidence, as well as some physical evidence, that investigators had amassed against Flores. Witness testimony pointed to the prosecutor's theory that Flores took a very drunk — possibly roofied — Smart back to his dorm room after an off-campus party and attempted to rape her. She apparently fought back, as evidenced by a black eye witnesses said they saw on Flores two days after she was last seen alive.

Witnesses testified that Flores, still a freshman at Cal Poly, had already earned the nickname "Chester the Molester" because of his obnxious behavior toward women, and another woman who attended the same party that Smart and Flores attended said that Flores had forcibly tried to kiss her that night and she had to shove him away.

Among the "errors" made by prosecutors at trial, Flores and his attorney Solomon Wollack argue that a witness on the stand should not have been allowed to testify that Smart was acting as if she had been given a date-rape drug while at the party. According to the appeal filed Monday, obtained by Bay Area News Group, Wollack argues that witness Trevor Boelter, who attended the same party on Crandall Way in May 1996, was not an expert and should not have been allowed to attest to the nature of Smart's intoxicated behavior.

"Though no direct evidence supported this theory, the argument became stronger after the court allowed Trevor Boelter to testify that Smart’s behavior at the Crandall Way party reminded him of his own behavior after someone had 'Roofied' his drink," the appeal document says. In addition to not being an expert in such drugs, Wollack argues, the court should not have given further credence to his testimony "by allowing him to testify about a newspaper article on the common phenomenon of women being 'roofied' at college parties.

The first "error" raised in the 75-page appeal document — in which the complaints contained are fairly similar to ones raised in an earlier appeal in 2024, per KSBY — accompanied by pages of court precedent, relates to Juror No. 273, who Wollack argues should not have been allowed to remain on the jury after several emotional disruptions to court proceedings. In one instance, the female juror reportedly had "a loud and tearful breakdown during key prosecution testimony about decomposition stains found under Ruben Flores’s deck."

The appeal suggests that jurors had reasonable doubt about the evidence concerning the disturbed ground beneath Ruben Flores's deck, and about fibers and possible evidence of decomposition found there. And if those jurors had enough doubt to acquit the elder Flores of being an accessory — Ruben Flores was tried before a separate jury, having been accused of helping his son transport and hide Smart's body — then it stands to reason they had reasonable doubt that Smart's body was ever on the property.

Flores and his attorney are further arguing that testomony by two women, identified only as Ro.D. and S.D, who claimed to have been assaulted by Flores in the years after he graduated from Cal Poly should not have been admissible.

Lastly, the appeal suggests that a prejudicial photo still taken from a video that was saved on Flores's home computer — seized during a February 2020 search — should not have been admissible. The court had deemed most of the apparently pornographic material found on the computer inadmissible, however one still of a woman "lying on a pillow with a red ball gag in her mouth" was admitted into evidence as corroboration that this ball gag, or a similar one, had been used in Flores's encounters with Ro.D. and S.D.

But, the appeal argues, the prosecutor at trial rhetorically asked jurors if the woman in the photograph appeared to be "having fun" during a rebuttal argument, at which point defense counsel unsuccessfully called for a mistrial, due to the possibility that this photograph enflamed jurors "passions."

The appeal was filed in Monterey County Superior Court, with Judge Jennifer O'Keefe, who presided over the 2022 trial. Flores's trial was moved out of San Luis Obispo County due to the likely impossibility of finding unbiased jurors there, after over two decades of media coverage of Smart's disappearance.

The appeal seeks to have Flores's conviction overturned, or to have the degree of murder lessened and his sentence reduced.

Flores is currently serving his sentence at Corcoran State Prison. He was moved there after several attacks, including a stabbing by another inmate, at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga last year.

Previously: Paul Flores Found Guilty In 1996 Murder of Kristin Smart