[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

June 25



TEXAS:

Houston father accused in honor killings begins death penalty trial



Opening statements are set to begin Monday in the death penalty trial of a 
Jordanian immigrant accused in a pair of "honor killings" that shocked Houston.

Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan's prosecution is the 1st death penalty trial this year 
in Harris County, and the 1st one since District Attorney Kim Ogg took office 
in January 2017, although special prosecutors have been appointed. Ogg recused 
her office because one of her top lieutenants had been connected to the case 
before joining the administration.

The trial, before state District Judge Jan Krocker, is expected to last 6 to 8 
weeks.

He was charged with capital murder because his alleged crime involved multiple 
victims - his daughter's best friend, Gelareh Bagherzadeh, an Iranian medical 
student and activist, and his daughter's husband, Coty Beavers, 28. Both 
slayings, authorities said, were driven by the anger of Irsan, a conservative 
Muslim, over his daughter Nesreen's decision to marry Beavers, a Christian from 
Houston.

Irsan, a 60-year-old Jordanian-American, has been behind bars since his arrest 
in April 2015. He was charged with capital murder because his alleged crime 
involved multiple victims - his daughter's best friend, Gelareh Bagherzadeh, an 
Iranian medical student and activist, and his daughter's husband, Coty Beavers, 
28.

Bagherzadeh, 30, was gunned down in January 2012 while driving toward her 
parents' Galleria townhome. Her friends and supporters initially thought the 
death was an assassination ordered by the government of Iran. Prosecutors 
believe he also fatally shot Beavers 11 months later in the couple's northwest 
Harris County apartment.

Isran was sentenced in 2015 to 4 years in federal custody after being convicted 
of an unrelated case involving the theft of disability benefits. U.S. District 
Judge Lynn Hughes ordered Irsan to serve almost 4 years for his role in 
defrauding the Social Security Administration for more than a decade and to pay 
$290,651 in restitution.

In 2015, Irsan, his wife and another daughter were sentenced to federal prison 
for the Social Security scheme, and prosecutors charged Irsan and his son, 
Nasim Irsan, 24, with capital murder.

Irsan's wife, 40-year-old Shmou Ali Alrawabdeh, faces murder charges in the 
case. She is being prosecuted in a separate case for the killing of activist 
Bagherzadeh.

His daughter and Nasreen's sister, Nadia Irsan, 33, faces a stalking charge 
connected to the slayings.

To secure a death sentence, special prosecutors Anna Emmons, Jonathan 
Stephenson, and Marie Ann Primm will have to prove the killings, almost a year 
apart, were part of the same criminal scheme.

In Texas, killing 2 people in furtherance of the same criminal enterprise is a 
capital crime. 2 slayings by the same person with divergent reasons would be 2 
murder charges.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

********************

Routier's defense continues its fight----ABC program focuses on case Tuesday



Attorneys for Darlie Routier, the Altoona native on death row in Texas for the 
murder of her 2 oldest children, have informed a federal judge in San Antonio 
that DNA testing is underway, and they have recommended her federal appeal not 
be dismissed, but remain in abeyance pending the outcome of state court 
proceedings.

The Routier case has received nationwide attention as she fights to have her 
1st-degree murder conviction and death penalty overturned.

Since her arrest 22 years ago next week, Routier has denied that she stabbed 
her 2 sons, Damon, 5, and Devon 6, to death in their Rowlett, Tex., home.

Routier has insisted an intruder entered the home during the early morning of 
June 6, 1996, and using a knife from the kitchen, stabbed her and her sons as 
they were sleeping in a downstairs family room.

A 3rd child, Drake, was in an upstairs bedroom with his father, Darin, and was 
not harmed.

Rowlett, Tex., police, according to the defense, almost immediately focused on 
Routier, who herself suffered a serious neck wound and bruising during the 
attack. Authorities rejected her intruder story.

A Texas jury in 1997 convicted her, and she has remained on death row since 
then.

Routier's present defense team has argued that her trial was infused with 
inflammatory remarks and less-than-credible forensic evidence that went 
unchallenged by her trial lawyers.

Her appeal at present remains in the state courts, but a federal petition has 
been filed in the U.S. District Court of West Texas.

Routier's fight for a new trial is 1 of 2 cases featured during a 7-week 
docu-series called "The Last Defense," airing on ABC.

The 3rd of 4 parts devoted to the Routier murder case will be shown at 10 p.m. 
Tuesday.

The remaining 3 weeks of the series will focus on an Oklahoma 
carjacking-homicide in which a man named Julius Jones, also on death row, 
continues to maintain his innocence.

In the Routier case, the appeals process has dragged on for years as her 
present lawyers received court permission to undertake extensive DNA testing of 
the blood found at the scene - on the clothes of Routier and her sons, as well 
as many other items.

After a 1st round of testing, the defense sought court permission for an 
additional review of blood on items that were not tested prior to her trial.

In 2013, the defense won the right for the additional testing of blood stains 
on a sock found in an alley 75 yards from the home, limb hair from the sock, 
and a bloody fingerprint found on a coffee table at the scene - a fingerprint 
that did not belong to anyone in the family.

The state court ordered testing of blood stains from Routier's night shirt, 
blood spots on the butcher knife used in the killings and blood stains on 
pillows in the room.

The defense is particularly interested in the blood on the sock.

In her trial, the prosecution argued that after Routier murdered her sons, she 
ran into the alley to plant the sock, then returned to the home and stabbed 
herself.

"If (Routier's) blood is found on the tube sock in the alley, it will 
demonstrate that she was already bleeding when the sock was deposited," 
according to the application for DNA testing. "Since no blood was found between 
the house and the alley, such evidence would prove the sock was placed in the 
alley by a 3rd party, thus corroborating (Routier's) account that the murders 
were committed by an unknown assailant."

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered that a status report be filed every 6 
months. The report filed last December stated items of evidence were 
transported to the Texas Department of Public Safety for DNA testing.

A status report filed last Tuesday in federal court by Dallas attorney Richard 
A. Smith, representing Routier, stated the Dallas County DA's office and 
defense attorneys still are awaiting the results of the tests.

(source: Altoona Mirror)








OHIO:

An appropriate case for the governor to grant clemency



John Kasich made an unusual request of the Ohio Parole Board. The governor 
received a letter from a juror in a capital punishment case going back 2 
decades. The juror explained that he had discovered the public record now 
contains more information about the case than was presented to the jury. He 
told the governor he would have opposed a death sentence if he had known the 
additional information.

It takes just 1 juror to prevent a death sentence.

So, in February, the governor asked the parole board to take another look at 
the clemency application of Raymond Tibbetts. One month earlier, the board had 
rejected clemency, by an 11-1 vote.

On Friday, the board reaffirmed its view. It denied clemency, arguing it wasn't 
persuaded the juror would have taken a different position on the death 
sentence. It found the heinousness of the crime still outweighed the mitigating 
evidence. Thus, it falls to the governor to correct an injustice.

Tibbetts committed a vicious double murder. He belongs in prison for the rest 
of his life. The process broke down as jurors decided whether he should be 
executed. They did not hear available mitigating evidence, largely because the 
defense attorneys fell short in their job. They presented an inadequate 
portrait of Tibbetts and his awful life growing up.

His parents were poor and addicted to drugs and alcohol. The neglect and abuse 
were so severe Tibbetts and his siblings were placed in foster care, where 
circumstances got worse. The children were ill fed, faced physical punishment, 
such as standing against a wall for hours and forced to urinate on themselves 
overnight.

No surprise Tibbetts turned to drugs or that he never received appropriate 
treatment for his mental illness. He did gain sobriety for a time. He had a 
family and a job. Then a work injury triggered a downward spiral, an opioid 
prescription resulting in renewed drug use. Soon, he brutally killed his wife 
and the man who owned the house where the family lived.

The prosecution invited the impression that Tibbetts' siblings fared well 
enough in their lives and that foster care proved a good thing. The full record 
indicates that neither is true.

By law, the state urges much care in conducting the death penalty. That is 
because of the stakes, the state, in the name of the public, in position to 
take a life. So jurors must hear evidence on both sides to determine whether 
death is appropriate. In the Tibbetts case, jurors did not receive a complete 
account of the abuse.

Would the additional information have changed the result? The parole board 
doesn't think so. Yet to get there, it must discount what an actual juror took 
the time and effort to inform the state.

As the juror reminded the governor, the state asks Ohioans to fulfill a civic 
duty in sitting on juries. He added that the state has a corresponding duty to 
get the process right. It didn't do so in the Tibbetts case. Now the governor 
can make the just repair, a death sentence becoming life without parole.

(source: Editorial Board, Akron Beacon Journal)