Mark Brown

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There was a slight delay, but preparations are under way for Mark Brown's execution at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

The AP reported that Brown's execution was delayed while authorities awaited word on two final appeals. Crews on the scene, however, just reported that those appeals were denied and the execution is expected to occur at 10:20 a.m.

Brown asked the U.S. Supreme Court to delay Thursday's execution while he challenges the state's lethal injection system. He also asked the court to grant a new trial.

State and lower federal courts have already rejected both requests. Prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn said Brown appeared to have usable veins in medical exams.

Brown was sentenced to death for the aggravated murder of Youngstown Midway Market owner Isam Salman in 1994.

Brown spent much of the day Wednesday writing and watching TV, said jail officials. He ate lunch at 11:45 a.m. and spent most of the afternoon on the phone with friends and his attorney.

According to jail officials, Brown spent Wednesday evening meeting with his brother, Kenneth Smith; spiritual adviser, Chester Philips; and attorney, Rachel Troutman. He was scheduled to meet with his sister, Michelle Brown, but that meeting did not happen.

Troutman informed Brown at 7 p.m. that his clemency had been denied by Gov. Ted Strickland, after which he became emotional, though the officials were not specific. His face-to-face meetings ended at 7:30 p.m.

At 8:04 p.m. Brown began eating his special meal, which consisted of steak, onion rings with ketchup, a double bacon cheeseburger with french fries, cake, ice cream, potato chips and a two-liter bottle of orange soda. It was reported that he finished most of his meal, but did not touch the steak.

Officials said Brown spent most of the night on the telephone and made multiple calls to his friends, and his sister, Michelle Brown. Brown slept from 4:49 a.m. until prison personnel woke him at 6:20 a.m.

Officials reported that after Brown woke up, he showered and met with the facility's mental health doctors, Philips and Troutman. They said he seemed to be in a better mood, and was laughing and joking with them.

At 9:45 a.m., the warden will read Brown's death warrant, and the execution is set to begin at 10 a.m. Though the victim's family is only permitted to have three witnesses inside the chamber, Salman's sister,Terri Rasul; brother, Walied Salman; son, Majdy Salman; and sister Inam Shahadeh, are all present. It was announced that Shahadeh will not be a witness.

Officials said seven family members are on-sight at the time of the execution. Brown's witnesses are Philips and Troutman.

Salman was killed during a robbery at his business, and Brown also was given a life sentence for the shooting death of clerk Hayder Al-Turk. Brown has made several attempts to avoid execution.

Valley Judge Maureen Sweeney last month ruled against a retrial for Brown, whose attorneys claimed two witnesses at this original trial lied on the stand. Sweeney determined the claims weren't credible. Judges with the 7th District Court of Appeals upheld Sweeney's ruling Tuesday.

Brown arrived at the death house just before 10 a.m. Wednesday. He had been held at the state prison in Youngstown.

Brown will be the third executed in Ohio under the state's new lethal injection method. The first was convicted Trumbull County killer Kenneth Biros.

To read more;
www.wytv.com/mostpopular/story/Slight-Delay-but-Brown-Execution-is-Underway/Pm2oHH25E0mGBRf-vpjZDA.cspx

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www.wytv.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoid=[e-mail]&navCatId=11

[thinkinkmesa]

After 16 years of litigation capped by a last-minute flurry of appeals in four courts, Mark Brown was executed this morning for gunning down a Youngstown store owner and an employee in Youngstown market.

Brown, 37, was declared dead at 10:49 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville. Brown had no last words. He was the third person put to death in the nation using Ohio's one-drug lethal injection process.

The chemical started flowing at 10:40 a.m. At 10:41 Brown closed his eyes and yawned. He was silent and there was movement after that.

After the execution, Terri Rasul, sister of victim Isam Salman, said, "As sad as this may be, justice has been served. I hope this is a lesson learned by young people today to not do what Mark Brown did to my brother."

On the night of Jan. 28, 1994, Brown and a juvenile friend, Allen "Boonie" Thomas, were drinking wine laced with Valium and smoking cigars hollowed out and stuffed with marijuana. At one point, the two young men talked about the movie, Menace II Society, in which assailants gun down two Asian convenience store employees.

Brown said he wanted to live out the scene from the movie, Thomas recalled.

Later that evening, he got his chance.

Brown and Thomas were driven to the Midway Market, an Arab-owned small convenience store in a rough neighborhood on Youngstown's north side. The two entered the store, made their purchases, and left. Then Brown went back inside, wearing a bandana or mask, according to witnesses.

Court records say Brown robbed the store and shot Hayder Al-Turk, a clerk, and Salman, the owner, as he crouched behind the counter. Both men died on the spot.

A few days later, after his arrest, Brown admitted to police that he had shot Al-Turk, but said he didn't remember shooting Salman. He said he "just flipped out" and attributed it to the Valium, saying "They make you go off."

Brown was convicted for both murders, but was sentenced to death only for killing Salman -- a crime he and his attorneys now claim was committed by Thomas.

The courts considered and rejected last-minute litigation stretching from a state appeals court in Youngstown and the Ohio Supreme Court, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Brown's public defender attorneys argued that he was innocent of the charge for which he was sentenced to death. They also claimed the case was riddled with false and recanted testimony and suppressed evidence.

But neither the courts nor Gov. Ted Strickland bought Brown's final arguments. Strickland turned down Brown's clemency plea late yesterday.

Brown was the second Ohioan executed this year and the 35th in the almost 11 years since capital punishment was resumed.
To read more;
www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/02/04/convenience-store-killer-executed.html?sid=101

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Mark Aaron Brown offered no final statement and stared at the ceiling as he was executed Thursday for murdering a Youngstown shop owner in 1994.

Brown offered only a quiet "No" when asked if he had any last words, and he did not make eye contact with either the family members of his victim or his attorney or clergy who witnessed the execution.

He became the 35th inmate put to death since the state resumed executions in 1999. He was the third executed under the state's new single-drug execution protocol.

Brown, 37, was convicted in the 1994 shooting deaths of Isam Salman and Hayder Al-Turk at the Midway Market in Youngstown.

He was transported from the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville Wednesday morning, then spent most of afternoon and night talking on the phone with friends, his sister, his attorney and two of the mothers of his children, said Julie Walburn, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

One call stretched from 2:14 a.m. until 4:49 a.m.

He had contact visits with his brother, his spiritual adviser and his attorney for several hours Wednesday evening, turning emotional at about 7 p.m. when he received word that Gov. Ted Strickland had denied his request for clemency.

Throughout the evening, he ate a special meal that included a bacon double cheeseburger, onion rings, orange soda and

ice cream. He did not eat breakfast Thursday morning, nor did he touch the T-bone steak, cooked well done, that he requested.

He slept from just before 5 a.m. until 6:20 a.m., when he showered and had cell-front visits with his spiritual adviser and two attorneys. He completed those visits after 8:30 a.m. and turned over his personal belongings to his legal counsel.

The U.S. Supreme Court turned down Brown's appeals just after 9 a.m., delaying the execution by about 20 minutes.

It took less than 10 minutes for prison staff to insert shunts into veins in both of Brown's arms and for the inmate to make the final 17-step walk from his holding cell to the death chamber. It took less than 10 minutes to complete the execution. Brown stared at the ceiling before his eyes closed for the last time. His chest heaved and he appeared to yawn before any discernible movement ceased.

Prior executions were carried out sing a three-drug combination — one drug making the inmate unconscious, followed by a muscle relaxer and a final solution that stopped the heart.

The new process involves only one drug, the sedative used to render inmates unconscious, but in a larger, lethal dose. In cases where suitable veins are not accessible, a backup plan calls for the intramuscular injection of two drugs.

Chester Phillips, spiritual adviser for Brown, and attorney Rachel Troutman witnessed the execution on Brown's behalf.

Seven members of Salman's family were at the prison for the execution, and three witnessed his death: sister Terri

Rasul; brother Walid Salman; and one son, Majdy Salman. His sister held a photograph of the murder victims.

Brown requested that his body be cremated, with his ashes turned over to his sister.
To read more;
www.vindy.com/news/2010/feb/04/update-state-executes-mark-aaron-brown/

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Condemned killer Mark Brown filed a last-minute lawsuit challenging Ohio's execution process as flawed and capable of causing severe pain, then was put to death Thursday in a nearly flawless death penalty procedure.

Brown, 37, was pronounced dead at 10:49 a.m. from a single dose of a powerful anesthetic under the state's new injection procedure, with death coming about nine minutes after the drug began flowing.

Brown was sentenced to die for the 1994 fatal shooting of 32-year-old Isam Salman, owner of the Midway Market in Youngstown, a crime in which he boasted of copying a movie's killings. He got a life prison term for killing the clerk, 30-year-old Hayder Al-Turk, who was shot first.

Brown did not give a last statement. After the single dose of thiopental sodium was administered at 10:40 a.m., he blinked several times, closed and opened his eyes and swallowed once before shutting his eyes a last time. At 10:42 a.m., his chest heaved, he appeared to yawn, his chest rose and dropped slightly several more times, then he fell still.

Federal lawsuits allege Ohio's execution team isn't properly trained, but the procedure went as smoothly Thursday as any execution in recent memory. Members of the team easily inserted IV needles in both of Brown's arms in about five minutes, sticking him just once on each arm.

The state recently switched from a three-drug lethal injection process, which opponents said could cause severe pain, to a one-drug system. Medical checks Wednesday and Thursday showed Brown had usable veins, prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn said.

"This execution was carried out professionally and in accordance with the laws of the state of Ohio," Walburn said. "It went as well as we expected it to go."

Brown was given permission Jan. 28 to join the most recent legal challenge in Ohio, but federal courts then denied his request for an execution delay.

Salman's son, brother and sister witnessed the execution.

"As sad as this may be, and it's very sad, justice has been served," sister Terri Rasul said afterward. "I just hope that this is a lesson for the young children today that they will learn not to do what Mark Brown had did to my brother."

Brown was up most of the night talking to friends and family on the phone before sleeping for about 90 minutes early Thursday. His mood was more emotional Wednesday during visits with a brother, Kenneth Smith, and when he learned around 7 p.m. that Gov. Ted Strickland had rejected his request for clemency, Walburn said.

State parole board records say Brown had been smoking cigars gouged out and refilled with marijuana and drinking wine laced with an anti-anxiety drug on Jan. 28, 1994, when he told friends he wanted to copy a scene from "Menace II Society," which stars Samuel L. Jackson and begins with the killings of two store clerks.

Brown went inside the convenience store with a friend, and both walked out together. Brown re-entered the store alone and shot the owner and the clerk, according to police and prosecutors' accounts.

Brown said he shot Al-Turk but didn't remember shooting Salman. Last month, he argued unsuccessfully for a new trial, saying witnesses could testify that his friend shot Salman. A judge said the witnesses weren't credible.

After his arrest, Brown blamed the drug Valium, saying, "they make you go off," according to parole board records.

The Ohio Parole Board rejected Brown's request for mercy last month, saying there appeared to be "no manifest injustice in either the conviction or the sentence."

Brown had told the board he was a changed, mature man trying to positively influence his four teenage children, his nephew and his nephew's friends by urging them to stay in school and avoid the mistakes he had made.

His public defender, Rachel Troutman, told the parole board that Brown's mother was a lifelong drug user who abused and neglected her children and eventually abandoned Brown. Troutman witnessed the execution but did not comment.

But Rasul told the board that the killing left seven children without a father. She said Brown should be executed to show there are consequences for a terrible crime.

Brown ordered a large final meal but ate only part of it around 8 p.m. Wednesday, including a cheeseburger, french fries, onion rings and orange soda. He requested a quart of Rocky Road ice cream around 11:30 p.m.

Ohio has put 35 men to death since resuming executions in 1999. The state is on a record pace for executions this year, with two men put to death so far and executions scheduled each month through September. Ohio executed seven inmates in 2004, second in the nation behind Texas.

www.cleveland.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-104/1265307981171680.xml&storylist=cleveland&thispage=1

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Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction

NEWS RELEASE



February 4, 2010

For Immediate Release



MEDIA ADVISORY

CONTACT: DRC Bureau of Communications

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The death sentence of inmate Mark Brown was carried out at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville this morning via intravenous lethal injection. Brown’s time of death was 10:49 a.m. His sentence was imposed on February 28, 1996 by the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

www.drc.ohio.gov/Public/press/press357.htm