The jury continues deliberations in the punishment phase of the trial.
Irsan faces sentence of life in prison with no parole or death
A Harris County jury is expected Tuesday to continue deliberating the fate of a Jordanian immigrant after prosecutors argued he should be put to death for masterminding two “honor killings,” fatal shootings where his son-in-law and his daughter’s close friend were ambushed at their homes in 2012.
Jurors spent almost five hours Monday trying to decide whether to give Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan, 60, the death penalty for the two murders or sentence him to life in prison without parole.
“His evil is real, and it is scary,” special prosecutor Anna Emmons said of Irsan during closing arguments. “He will lie, cheat, steal manipulate, abuse, torture, stalk and kill to get what he wants.”
The damning words were some of the last statements the jury heard in the lengthy death penalty trial of Irsan. Weeks earlier the same jury quickly found him guilty of the double homicide of his 28-year-old son-inlaw, Coty Beavers, in November 2012, and Gelareh Bagherzadeh, an Iranian activist who was a close friend of Irsan’s daughter, 11 months earlier in January.
Irsan’s defense team invoked scripture and the story of Cain and Abel to try to convince jurors that God would prefer a condemned man to live with sin and shame rather than be killed.
Attorney Rudy Duarte also argued that jurors should take Irsan’s Jordanian upbringing and religion into account.
“How can you sentence someone to death if you don’t understand their culture,” he asked the jury, and argued that the death penalty is “ethically and
morally wrong.”
“It is an attack on all human dignity, everywhere,” Duarte said. “In a modern society, the death penalty is not necessary.”
The defense, in their closing arguments, also noted that Irsan may not be kept in general population if he is sentenced to life without parole. It was an argument that prompted jurors later to send a note to the judge for clarification. The jury was read portions of the earlier testimony of a prison official who said Irsan would not automatically be jailed in administrative segregation, but could end up there if he causes trouble behind bars.
In an attempt to mitigate Irsan’s actions, defense attorney Allan Tanner revisited testimony that showed the Jordanian patriarch “chickened out” at the first murder scene outside a Galleria-area townhome. Tanner pointed the finger at Irsan’s son, who allegedly went with his father and step mother and was the one who pulled the trigger to kill Bagherzadeh.
“That’s mitigation,” he said, referring to Irsan’s apparent hesitation to shoot his daughter’s friend.
“We’re not talking about convicting someone now, we’re talking about putting someone to death,” Tanner said.
Duarte and Tanner noted that Irsan’s second wife, who was at both murder scenes, testified against her husband in exchange for a guilty plea to felony kidnapping and a sentence limited to the time she has been held in jail awaiting trial.
“She has all the motivation in the world to lie to you,” Tanner said about 40-year-old Shmou Ali Alrawabdeh. “We don’t know what happened at either crime scene, we really don’t.”
He also argued that the death penalty is futile, especially for a 60-year-old when the average time of death row is 11 years.
“Just killing him, I don’t see how that solves anything,” Tanner said. “I don’t see any good in killing the guy when he’s going to be 80 or 90.”
During closing arguments, special prosecutor Marie Primm weaved together more than 20 years of Irsan’s bad acts to sway jurors against letting Irsan serve a life sentence in general population in prison.
She reminded the jury that Irsan also killed another son-inlaw in 1999.
Irsan testified that it was in self-defense. Other family members said he blasted Amjad Alidam in the chest with a shotgun because he did not approve of Alidam’s marriage to his oldest daughter, then planted a pistol on the body.
“Ali Irsan gets to be the judge, jury and executioner of anyone who goes outside of Ali Irsan’s control,” she said.
Both sides had about an hour to give closing arguments Monday, capping an eight-week capital murder trial in state District Judge Jan Krocker’s court. After five weeks of testimony, the jury took less than an hour to convict Irsan of capital murder in July.
The same jury then spent two weeks listening to testimony to determine whether Irsan should be sentenced to death or life without parole.
In order to sentence Irsan to death, jurors will have to agree that he would be a “future danger” to society and there are not enough mitigating circumstances to spare his life. Jurors began deliberating immediately after closings.