Mike on Crime

Andrew Welsh-Huggins, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LUCASVILLE, Ohio – Ohio on Thursday executed a man who bragged that he would copy a killing scene from a violent movie, then shot a convenience store owner and a clerk to death.

Mark Brown, 37, was put to death at 10:49 a.m. (1549 GMT) with 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 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 fell 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.

Brown was sentenced to die for the 1994 fatal shooting of 32-year-old Isam Salman. He got a life prison term for killing the clerk, 30-year-old Hayder Al-Turk, who was shot first.

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

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 Diazepam, saying, “they make you go off,” according to parole board records.