Parole board recommends against clemency for Mark Aaron Brown

COLUMBUS — The state parole board has recommended against clemency for a Mahoning County man set to be executed early next month.

In a unanimous 6-0 vote, the board said today that Mark Aaron Brown should face the death penalty for murdering a Youngstown store owner and employee.

“The conviction and sentence have received extensive consideration by reviewing courts and have been withheld,” the board wrote in the decision. “There appears to be no manifest injustice in either the conviction or the sentence.”

The recommendation was delivered to Gov. Ted Strickland this morning. Strickland will have the final say on whether to allow the execution to move forward or commute Brown’s sentence to life in prison without parole.

Brown was convicted in the 1994 shooting deaths of Isam Salman and Hayder Al-Turk at the Midway Market in January 1994. He is scheduled to be executed Feb. 4 at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

For the complete story, see Thursday's Vindicator and Vindy.com