Year’s first death case underway
Jury selection starts for man, 60, accused in two ‘honor killings’
A Jordanian immigrant accused in a pair of “honor killings” that shocked Houston went on trial for his life Monday as the lengthy jury selection phase began.
Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan’s prosecution is the first death penalty trial conducted this year in Harris County and the first one since District Attorney Kim Ogg took office in January 2017.
Opening arguments and testimony are set to begin June 25 after 12 jurors and two alternates are selected through extensive individual questioning, which is required in a capital murder trial.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys must first screen the answers to each prospective juror’s questionnaire. If both sides agree, the juror is then questioned under oath about their life experience, whether
they can be fair and whether they can sentence someone to death when appropriate.
The heightened scrutiny at jury selection is to ensure that each juror is able to cast a vote to execute.
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 crime allegedly involved multiple victims; he is accused of killing his daughter’s husband and her best friend, an Iranian activist.
Both slayings, authorities said, were driven by the anger of Irsan, a conservative Muslim, over his daughter Nesreen’s decision to marry Coty Beavers, a Christian from Houston.
Gelareh Bagherzadeh, a fervent Christian convert and Nesreen’s best friend, encouraged the marriage.
The 30-year-old was killed in January 2012 when she was gunned down while driving toward her parents’ Galleria townhome. Her friends and supporters initially thought the death was an assassination ordered by the government of Iran.
Almost a year later, Beavers, 28, was fatally shot November 12, 2012, at the Houston home he shared with Nesreen.
Police began investigating Irsan, his wife and his adult son and daughter. Together, police alleged, the family had planned and carried out Bagherzadeh’s slaying.
Under the heightened scrutiny, Irsan was arrested in a Montgomery County SWAT raid in 2014. However, police arrested him for Social Security fraud, not the killings.
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 al Rawabdeh, faces murder charges in the case. She is being prosecuted in a separate case for the killing of activist Bagherzadeh.
His daughter — Nesreen’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 two people in furtherance of the same criminal enterprise is a capital crime.
Two slayings by the same person with divergent reasons would just be two murder charges.
A trio of attorneys were appointed as special prosecutors after Ogg recused her office because her first assistant, Tom Berg, had been connected to the defense before he was hired.
Although he is not being prosecuted by Ogg, Irsan is the first death penalty trial to take place since she took office.
Defense attorneys Allen Tanner and Rudy Duarte have filed several motions to stop the prosecution, including asking that a judge remove the prosecutors from the case over possible financial conflicts of interest.
Special prosecutors are paid for more hours of work for death cases than nondeath capital murder cases.
That motion was denied, and the special prosecutors denied any financial motivation.