Robert Lee Thompson, 34, didn't fire the shot that killed clerk Mansoor Rahim, also identified as Mansoor Rahim Mohammed, during a robbery of the Seven Evenings convenience store on Braeswood Boulevard. But a Harris County jury sentenced him to death under the state's “law of parties,” which holds accomplices as responsible for a murder as the person who does the killing. The triggerman, Sammy Butler, was sentenced to life in prison after prosecutors failed to prove he intended to kill Rahim.

In the punishment phase of Thompson's trial, prosecutors contended the men had been involved in at least eight other robberies, some of which resulted in the deaths of store employees.

Thompson's case marked the third time the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has recommended that a death sentence be commuted to life in prison during Perry's years as governor. He has voluntarily commuted only one death sentence during his tenure as governor.

“After reviewing all the facts in the case of Robert Lee Thompson, who had a murderous history and participated in the killing of (Rahim), I have decided to uphold the jury's capital murder conviction and capital punishment for this heinous crime,” Perry said in a written statement.

Thompson, who converted to Islam while in prison, opened his final remarks: “I bear witness that there is no God, but Allah. From Allah we come and to Allah we return.”

He thanked his mother and friends for their support.

“We all have to walk this path,” he said. “Smile, be happy, don't cry.”

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Thompson then apologized for his crime. “I never meant any of your family to get hurt,” he said to an empty chamber normally occupied by the victim's family.

Thompson's mother, Audrey Champs, one of two people he wanted to witness his death, wept inconsolably, stamping her feet and pressing her head to the glass separating the witness room from the execution chamber.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she sobbed.

At one point the woman asked to be escorted from the witness room.

Thompson was declared dead at 6:19 p.m.

Out of ammo

Court documents indicate the robbery was to have been a final stickup in a series committed by Thompson and Butler. The store was staffed by Rahim and a cousin, Mubarakali Meredia. In a death row interview, Thompson said he had harbored resentment against merchants he considered exploitative of blacks.

Thompson approached Meredia at the checkout counter, pulled a pistol and demanded money. As the clerk opened the register, Thompson shot him four times. He then spotted Rahim at the store's rear and fired two shots in his direction.

Then, trial records indicate, Thompson aimed his weapon at Meredia's neck and pulled the trigger a fifth time. Out of ammunition, the pistol failed to fire. Thompson then pistol-whipped the clerk and beat him over the head with the cash tray.

Meredia survived the attack.

As the robbers fled — Thompson at the getaway car's wheel, Butler in the passenger seat — Rahim charged into the parking lot. Butler fired two shots, killing him.

Even though Thompson did not fire the fatal bullet, under the Texas law of parties he was a killer as culpable as Butler and was eligible for the death penalty.

A similar case

The case bore similarities to the only case in which Perry commuted a death sentence. In August 2007 he spared the life of Kenneth Foster, who had been convicted of capital murder in a law of parties case stemming from a deadly San Antonio traffic altercation.

As with Thompson, Foster, who had been the getaway driver in a series of robberies, did not fire the lethal bullet.

Texas' law of parties stipulates that a person may be held culpable if he “solicits, encourages, directs, aids or attempts to aid the other persons to commit the offense.” Additionally, it holds that if one felony offense grows out of the commission of another felony — a murder stemming from a robbery, for example — all parties in the first crime may be held responsible for the second.

allan.turner@chron.com