Parole panel to consider clemency for murderer

The Blade, Toledo, Ohio - December 2, 2009

Dec. 2--COLUMBUS -- Attorneys for convicted murderer Vernon Smith will try to convince the Ohio Parole Board tomorrow that he never meant to kill the owner of a Toledo carryout during a robbery 16 years ago and should be spared execution.

The state, however, will counter that Smith, 37, "callously and deliberately" shot a cooperative Sohail Darwish, who left behind a wife, a young daughter, and an unborn daughter.

The parole board will recommend whether Gov. Ted Strickland should commute Smith's sentence to life in prison. Also known as Abdullah Sharif Kaazim Mahdi, Smith faces lethal injection on Jan. 7 under Ohio's new single-drug process.

"The next day, when Mahdi was at home, he heard on the news that Darwish had died," reads the clemency application submitted by Ohio assistant public defenders Robert Lowe and Kimberly Rigby. "Upon hearing this, he broke down and cried. He was extremely distraught, not over the trouble he was in but the fact that he had taken a man's life."

The victim's widow, Charlotte Darwish, and his daughters, Dolly and Mona, are expected to speak to the parole board. Smith's aunt, Patricia Dickerson, is expected to make a statement via video.

Smith refused to be interviewed in prison by a parole board member. Death row inmates do not appear before the full board.

"Mahdi has not demonstrated that he deserves any mercy," reads the state's argument filed by Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, Lucas County Prosecutor Julia Bates, and Christopher Anderson, assistant prosecuting attorney.

"Without any provocation, Mahdi deliberately shot Sohail in the chest, despite Sohail fully complying with Mahdi's orders," they argue. "Sohail's death left his widow, Charlotte Darwish, to raise and support both their first child and the unborn baby she was pregnant with when Sohail was murdered. To this day, Mahdi has shown no remorse."

Smith's attorneys argue he believed he had shot Woodstock Market owner Mr. Darwish in the arm during the May 26, 1993, robbery, unaware it would prove fatal. They accuse his trial attorney of conceding Smith's guilt and not seriously challenging the prosecution's contention that Mr. Darwish's death was intentional until it came time to fight the death sentence. The gambit failed.

Smith is getting some help from a former 6th District Court of Appeals judge who cast the sole dissent in the decision upholding the conviction and sentence. At the request of Smith's attorneys, retired Judge James R. Sherck of Sandusky County submitted a letter to the parole board in which he questions whether Smith meant to kill Mr. Darwish.

"The victim was shot in the left shoulder and bullet traveled laterally near the collarbone and came to rest near the right wing bone," he wrote. "Though normally not a fatal wound, the bullet in this case severed a main artery in its path, causing the victim to bleed to death." He said Smith did not shoot Mr. Darwish's friend Osand (Senate) Tahboub, who was seated behind the counter at the time.

The clemency petition also goes after trial counsel's failure to question potential jurors about possible racial bias. Smith is black. Mr. Darwish was a Palestinian raised in Saudi Arabia before immigrating to Toledo.

Conspirator Lamont Layson, who waited in the car during the robbery, had testified that Smith told him, "[Expletive] him, he in our neighborhood anyway. He shouldn't be in our neighborhood with a store, no way."

Layson was sentenced to seven to 25 years for aggravated robbery. His cousin, Herbert Bryson, was in the store with Smith and was sentenced to 10 to 25 years for involuntary manslaughter.

Since Ohio resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1999, three death row inmates have received mercy -- one from Gov. Bob Taft and two from Mr. Strickland.

Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.

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