[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, LA., IDAHO
Oct. 13 TEXAS: A story of Revenge, Change and Forgiveness He was a "Lone Wolf" - years before the term was appropriated to describe self-inspired individuals on a killing rampages who use religion as vindication of their actions. In the days following the 9/11 attacks, Mark Stroman began "hunting Arabs," - as he described it - his nights occupied by prowling the highways and running victims off the road. To avenge the deaths of the twin towers, he graduated to shooting people whom he believed were Muslims from the Middle East - they were actually immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and a Hindu from India. He killed 2 and partially blinded a young man from Bangladesh. Thankfully, he was arrested before he could commit his planned massacre of dozens of Muslim worshipers at a local Dallas Mosque. Stroman was going to make a statement "like Muhamad Atta (the hijacker of the first 9/11 plane) did" trying to avenge the senseless killing of innocent Americans by killing innocent Muslim worshipers. To his friends, he had said that he planned to die in the carnage and mayhem. Luckily police got to him first. The Press at the time described Stroman as an "American terrorist." Today we might as well call him an "American Lone Wolf." From 2004 and for the next 7 years, filmmaker Ilan Ziv met and befriended Mark Stroman on Texas' infamous death row, where he had been since his capital murder conviction in 2002. At trial Stroman was described by the prosecutor as a "monster, a cancer to society", yet Ilan was perplexed to meet a complex man full of contradictions, who shared the same troubled soul as the most recent "lone wolves" who used Jihad as a cover for their personal failings and justification for their crimes. By then, Stroman had become a man in search of meaning and redemption. So Ziv set out to document what he called "the enigma of Mark Stroman." The result is a fascinating portrait of a serial killer, and a unique insight into the profound changes he went through. Ziv chronicled his relationship on film, but also set up a blog for Stroman. Unbeknownst to both the filmmaker and Stroman, among the growing readership was Rais Bhuiyan, Mark's only surviving victim. An Islamic pilgrimage seeded in Rais a desire to forgive Mark and to spare his life. He had a "strange" idea: if he was ever to be whole, he must reenter Stroman's life. He longed to confront Stroman and speak to him face to face about the attack that changed their lives. Mark asked for forgiveness from his victims and Bhuiyan publicly forgave him, in the name of his religion and its notion of mercy. Then two months before Mark's execution, Rais waged a legal and public relations campaign against the State of Texas and Governor Rick Perry, to have his attacker spared from the death penalty. An Eye for an Eye is the record of this riveting human drama of revenge, change and forgiveness, and of the surprising friendship that developed between the Israeli born filmmaker and Mark Stroman, who by his own admission, had never travelled beyond Dallas let alone Texas. It is a tale that stands as a poignant message in times when fear, hate and revenge are part of the daily rhetoric. 3 days before his execution, Mark Stroman declared in an interview; "If a terror attack happens again, stay united and do not stereotype the Muslims ... Don't be a dumbass ... do not be a Mark Stroman." Those words are more relevant today than when they were recorded just 5 years ago. In theatres October 28th New York - Cobble Hill Cinemas Dallas/Ft. Worth - AMC Grapevine Mills 30 Houston - AMC Studio 30 Los Angeles - Laemmle Music Hall New York Cobble Hill Cinemas 265 Court St, Brooklyn, NY 11231, USA Phone: 718-596-4995 Dallas- Ft. Worth AMC Grapevine Mills 30 Grapevine Mills, 3150 Grapevine Mills Pkwy, Grapevine, TX 76051, USA Phone: 972-539-5909 Houston AMC Studio 30 2949 Dunvale Rd, Houston, TX 77063, USA Phone: 713-977-4431 Los Angeles Laemmle Music Hall 9036 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211, USA Phone: 310-478-3836 (source: vimeo.com) LOUISIANA: DA to seek death penalty in killing of deputy The Jefferson Parish District Attorney's Office will seek the death penalty for the man suspected of fatally shooting a Sheriff's Office deputy earlier this year. District Attorney Paul Connick announced the decision Thursday morning after a grand jury indicted Jerman Neveaux on a count of 1st-degree murder in the death of Deputy David Michel. Authorities have said Neveaux shot Michel during a struggle after Michel stopped Neveaux on Manhattan Boulevard in June. "We believe the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of Detective Michel warrant the harshest penalty," Connick said in a prepared statement. "After consulting with my staff and Detective Michel's family, I have decided that my office will seek the death penalty." Neveaux also was charged with aggrava
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----TEXAS, LA., IDAHO, IND., OHIO
July 27 TEXASimpending execution Texas inmate set to die for slaying of Minnesota student When she last spoke with her sister, 24-year-old Kiersa Paul said she was heading out on her bicycle to a popular Austin park to meet a guy she felt sorry for and knew only as "Wolf." The predator nickname turned out prophetic. The next morning, Paul was found dead. She'd been raped, strangled, her throat cut at least 8 times and an "X" etched into her chest. David Martinez, known as Wolf, was arrested days after the 1997 slaying. Travis County jurors deliberated only 15 minutes before convicting him of capital murder. 2 weeks later, they decided he should be put to death. Martinez, 29, was set for lethal injection Thursday evening. He would be the 10th Texas inmate executed this year in the nation's most active capital punishment state. The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year refused to review his conviction. A petition to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles seeking to commute his sentence to life or grant a 120-day reprieve was rejected Tuesday by a 7-0 vote. Martinez declined to speak with reporters in the weeks leading up to his punishment. In a late appeal filed this week, lawyers were challenging whether the Travis County district attorney's office, at the time of Martinez's trial, adequately investigated allegations Martinez was abused as a child. Appeals attorney Gary Taylor argued that results of such an investigation could have persuaded jurors to choose a life prison term rather than death. Paul, whose family lived in Bloomington, Minn., was a sophomore art student at the University of Minnesota who had come to Austin to visit a sister. She decided to stay, finding work as a cashier at a bakery and apparently meeting Martinez through mutual friends. Martinez was on probation for a 1995 conviction for possession of an explosive device, a homemade hand grenade police found in his car during a traffic stop. Defense lawyers presented no witnesses at the guilt-innocence portion of capital murder trial and focused on trying to save his life by showing he had a mother who abused and neglected him in a home that was covered with bird feces. When he left there to live with his father, his dad was in an openly gay relationship and in the business of making homosexual sex toys, according to an affidavit from defense attorneys. "This was a young man who had a very difficult life," recalled Bill White, one of Martinez's trial lawyers. "He couldn't stay with his mother, he couldn't stay with his father, and he found people who would take him in." At times, he lived on the streets. "The facts of the case were pretty horrendous," White said. "This young nice woman who agreed to go out and meet him and then have this happen ... it was tragic all around." Paul's body was found by a jogger on a greenbelt trail that runs along Barton Creek. When Martinez was arrested, he had her bicycle, her backpack and a book bag. A roommate who saw Martinez's new bicycle had called police. DNA tests showed her blood on his pocket knife and his hair and semen on the woman or her clothes. Evidence indicated she had struggled. Authorities found 8-inch-long strands of hair in her hands that had been pulled from her attacker's scalp. At least 8 other Texas death row inmates have execution dates, 2 in each of the next 4 months. After Martinez, next on the schedule is Gary Sterling, set to die Aug. 10 for the 1988 robbery and slaying of a Navarro County man. ON THE NETTexas Department of Criminal Justice execution schedule: http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/scheduledexecutions.htm (source: Associated Press) One gunshot, two families in pain In a matter of moments, the lives of 2 families were torn apart after a toddler was shot to death and her neighbor was charged with capital murder. Amin Hussein came to America to find a better life. Now he is in jail, charged with the capital murder of a toddler. Just hours after Amin Hussein was charged on Monday, his apartment was vandalized. All the windows in his apartment were broken and the place was ransacked. His family calls it retaliation. "It's been a nightmare trying to figure out what to do, hoping the truth comes out," says Hussein's wife. His wife and brother agreed to talk to 11 News only if their faces weren't shown. "We've been harassed an abused and fearful. I mean, we are afraid," his wife says. They say Hussein moved to America from Pakistan looking for a better life. He and his wife came to Houston six years ago and settled into apartment 401. He was an electrician by trade until he fell through a ceiling and shattered his elbow. "He is a very kind gentle person, not into crimes. He has never been in trouble with the law, not even traffic tickets," says his brother. But now, Hussein's in jail, charged with firing one shot that struck 2-year-old Nyoshea Harris in the neck. She later died. This happened after his apar
