By Helen Shamamyan
HOUSTON, TX -Syed Rabbani had his 1988 sentencing overturned Nov. 14 by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals after being put on death row for a fatal shooting in Houston, and could be paroled because of his time served in prison and severely deteriorating mental and physical state, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
In 1994, Rabbani filed an appeal to the Harris County Courts regarding his sentencing to death row, which went unanswered until just a year ago when the District Clerk’s office found it filed away with more than100 other “forgotten” cases, said DPIC.
According to Rabbani’s counsel, the 58-year-old’s appeal “gathered dust in the offices of the Harris County District Clerk” until 2022.
According to the accused’s legal team, said DPIC, Rabbani now “suffers from a variety of other medical issues that have left him in a vegetative state since early 2022,” alongside his known diagnoses of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, which were diagnosed only after his original conviction.
According to Clare Amani’s article in the Houston Landing, the original judge “failed to properly instruct jurors about taking important factors into consideration during the sentencing phase of his trial,” such as “evidence of mental illness,” which is why his conviction was ruled to be “unconstitutional” in recent proceedings.
More than 30 years of incarceration have medically worsened his physical and mental health, as many of his health needs throughout the years have gone untreated or ignored in prison, said DPIC.
Ben Wolff, who is Rabbani’s defense counsel, pointed to medical records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice which documented a repeated pattern of prison staff recommending the accused be moved to a hospice care facility, but due to his seat on death row, his transfer was deemed ineligible.
Wolff, said DPIC, explained to Judge Lori Chambers Gray in recent proceedings Rabbani “is confined to a prison bed in probably the most disgusting prison circumstances…ever seen,” detailing the conditions of his confinement the attorney terms “amounts to torture.”
Although Rabbani’s family, specifically his brother, Syed Fasaini, lost contact with him back in the ’90s, they have since reconnected this year and wrote a letter to Judge Chambers Gray indicating a desire and willingness, “if given the chance… to take care of him for the rest of his life.”
Wolff encouraged the court to grant his client this opportunity to be granted parole and provided with hospice care by his family in his home country of Bangladesh, said DPIC.
The judge agreed, reported DPIC, to review the full case record before the possibility of granting parole, although in agreement that Rabbani is in desperate need of hospice care.
Rabbani’s case is a “due process disaster,” and the courts “need to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” according to Joshua Reiss, Post-Conviction Writ Division Chief.
“We are all poorly served when potential cases of wrongful conviction get lost by a court clerk for decades. And, unfortunately, persons like Mr. Rabbani… are powerless in the face of such incompetence.”
