Board recommends against clemency for Mark Aaron Brown

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Mark Aaron Brown

By Marc Kovac

Brown is scheduled for execution Feb. 4.

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 Mark Aaron Brown should face the death penalty for killing 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 Wednesday to Gov. Ted Strickland. 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.

Brown was interviewed by the state parole board last month, and more than 40 family members and friends of the inmate and the murder victim attended his clemency hearing earlier this month in Columbus.

Brown has continued to say he does not remember killing Salman, whose murder prompted the death sentence. He admitted shooting Al-Turk and was sentenced to life in prison.

Public defenders representing Brown said his former legal counsel mishandled the case and subsequent appeals and never fully investigated his innocence claims. They also said Brown’s upbringing with a mother addicted to drugs should be considered.

But Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains, representatives of the state attorney general’s office and Salman’s sister and several of his children urged the parole board to leave Brown’s death sentence intact.

In its report to the governor, the parole board wrote that it found nothing compelling to support Brown’s contention that he did not shoot Salman.

“While Mark Brown denies shooting Mr. Salman, the board finds it more likely that he was the principal offender in the killing of both victims,” the board wrote.

Members also said that Brown’s history of “good institutional adjustment” since entering prison and his troubled childhood did not outweigh the aggravating factors in the murders.

“... There were two innocent victims killed during the offense,” members wrote. “The second victim appeared to be attempting to hide from the shooting and was killed execution-style. Robbery was not established in this case, which suggests the motivation for the shooting of Mr. Salman was to kill him.”

Ohio Public Defender Tim Young criticized the parole board decision and urged the governor to grant clemency in the case.

In a released statement, Young said, “Mark Brown’s case presented to the parole board every issue it claims to look for during its consideration of clemency: innocence; lying witnesses; ineffective counsel; questionable court proceedings, including an elected prosecutor who, during the time of trial, was known to have accepted bribes and fixed cases, and who ultimately was sentenced to prison for his corruption; nearly perfect behavior in prison; and a lifetime of abuse.

“If all of these factors together in one case do not justify even a single vote for mercy, then the Ohio Parole Board should no longer be part of Ohio’s clemency process.”

mkovac@dixcom.com