Ohio executes Mark Brown

After 16 years of litigation capped by a last-minute flurry of appeals in 4 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. He was the 3rd person put to death in the nation using Ohio's 1-drug lethal injection process.

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 2 young men talked about the movie, Menace II Society, in which assailants gun down 2 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 2 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 Isam 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 2nd Ohioan executed this year and the 35th in the almost 11 years since capital punishment was resumed in 1999.

Brown becomes the 6th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and th3 1194th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Sources: Columbus Dispatch, Rick Halperin, Feb. 4, 2010