[ 2011-06-06 ]

Rais Bhuiyan,leading the effort to prevent his attacker from being executed next month in Texas.

A victim of 9/11 hate crime now fights for his attacker's life
Days after the 9/11 terror attacks, 31-year old
laborer Mark Stroman went on a shooting spree in
the Dallas area. In a drug-fueled mission of
revenge, he killed two South Asian immigrants and
shot another — Rais Bhuiyan — in the face at
close range, blinding him in one eye.

Shortly after his arrest, Stroman boasted of his
role as "Arab Slayer."

Now, as Stroman faces imminent execution in Texas,
an unlikely champion is fighting to save his life:
Bhuiyan, who spent years recovering from the
wounds he suffered in the attack.

"I've had many years to grow spiritually," said
Bhuiyan, a Muslim who immigrated to the U.S. from
Bangladesh and now works as technology
professional in Dallas. "I'm trying to do my best
not to allow the loss of another human life. I'll
knock on every door possible."

Bhuiyan began collecting signatures late last year
on a petition asking the Texas Board of Pardons
and Paroles to commute Stroman's death penalty
sentence to life in prison without parole through
his website "World without Hate." Now he is
working systematically through legal and political
channels save Stroman's life.

"I'm getting a lot of support from all over the
world … even my home country, where the Internet
is a luxury," Bhuiyan said.

Among those supporting his cause are some
relatives of the two victims who were killed.

'Unprecedented'

The odds are stacked against Stroman, 41, who is
held in the Texas State Penitentiary at
Huntsville, where he is scheduled to be executed
on July 20.

The seven-member Texas Board of Pardons and
Paroles holds the power to recommend a commutation
to the governor, but it has only done so in one
death penalty case since December 2000, when the
current Gov. Rick Perry took office. That
recommendation was denied by Perry.

During his administration, 229 death row inmates
have been executed — far more than the 152 put
to death during predecessor George W. Bush's term
or the 92 executed while Ann Richards occupied the
governor's mansion — a record at the time. Nor
has Perry exercised his power to grant a one-time
30-day stay of execution.

Even when immense public pressure has been brought
to bear — as was the case before convicted
murderer Karla Faye Tucker was put to death —
the board has not bent. Tucker became an
international cause celebre because of her gender
and her widely publicized conversion to
Christianity while in prison. She was put to death
by lethal injection at Huntsville on Feb. 3, 1998,
the first woman to be executed in the United
States in 14 years.

"If (clemency) happens in this case (Stroman's),
it would be unprecedented," said Rick Halperin,
who teaches history and runs the Center for Human
Rights at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
"If, in fact, the ears, hearts and minds of the
parole board and possibly the governor can be
persuaded to spare a life, it would be quite a
gesture. I would like to say there is a precedent
for it in this state, but there isn't."

Victim's plea as mitigating evidence?

But for a victim to come forward in a capital case
to seek leniency for the condemned is so unusual
that Stromon's defense attorney Lydia Brandt is
hopeful that the outcome could be different this
time.

"What makes this unique is that we have a victim
coming forward and asking the board for clemency,"
said Brandt. "This isn't just lawyers seeking
clemency."

In addition to Bhuiyan's public appeal, Brandt
says at least one of the other victims' relatives
has agreed to give a statement to the court, but
will ask that his or her name be kept out of the
public record.

Even if the board of pardons is not persuaded by
Bhuiyan's plea, Brandt plans to bring his call for
mercy to state courts as mitigating evidence that
was not heard during Stroman's 2002 trial.

Bhuiyan now recalls that as a new immigrant to the
country, only 26 at the time, he was in a state of
paralysis, thinking only about how he would
survive. He had little understanding of the legal
system, and had no idea how the trial would play
out.

"In death penalty practice, the jury is allowed to
consider mitigating evidence, which can be
virtually anything like good character, abuse as a
child, drug and alcohol addiction," said Brandt.
"We could go back to the court… and say this is
evidence that the jury was not allowed to hear."

Mental state in question

In addition, she will argue that Stroman was
mentally impaired and delusional at the time of
the shootings — evidence that was not presented
in the guilt-innocence phase of his trial.

The basic facts of Stroman's crime are not in
question. He shot all three of his victims while
they were working at convenience stores. The crime
for which Stroman was convicted of capital murder
was the shooting death of Indian immigrant Vasudev
Patel in Mesquite, Texas on Oct. 4, 2001.

Stroman was charged but not tried for the killing
of Waqar Hasan, a Pakistani immigrant on Sept. 15,
2001in Dallas.

Five days later, he walked into the Dallas gas
station and store where Bhuiyan was working.
Instead of robbing the store, as Bhuiyan expected,
Stroman asked where he was from, and then shot him
in the face with a shotgun from 4 to 5 feet away.

At trial, the prosecution used a video
surveillance tape to prove the murder of Patel was
robbery-gone-wrong, making it a capital crime
punishable by death.

Stroman had previous convictions for burglary,
robbery, theft and credit card abuse for which he
was sentenced to prison twice, and paroled in both
cases, most recently in 1991.

Drug addiction, history of abuse

Brandt has testimony from experts who say that
Stroman's childhood history of trauma from neglect
and abuse and a long-running methamphetamine
addiction rendered him mentally impaired and
delusional when he committed these crimes, and
thus not in a "condition of mind" to be convicted
for capital crime.

They point to Stroman's initial descriptions of
what he was doing as evidence of his delusion —
that he was personally avenging the 9/11 attacks
on the United States.

Stroman was on a long meth "run" when he went on
the shooting spree and had been consumed by
watching TV coverage in the aftermath of the 9/11
attacks, according to testimony at his trial.

Source - Msnbc.com

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