The State of Texas executed Mark Stroman last night, July 20, 2011, after a three-hour delay while courts considered a final appeal from his surviving shooting victim, Rais Bhuiyan. Stroman was pronounced dead at 8:53 p.m. He was sentenced to death for the racially-motivated killing of Vasudev Patel, an Indian of the Hindu faith who owned a gas station and convenience store in Mesquite. The murder occurred during a crime rampage by Stroman that he claims was fueled by the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City – a rampage that left two people dead and Bhuiyan severely wounded.
As reported by the Associated Press, “The execution’s brief delay was caused by appeals from Rais Bhuiyan, a Bangladesh native who said his Muslim religion allowed him to forgive Stroman. Bhuiyan, who was blinded in one eye in the shooting, insisted that state officials had prevented him from meeting with Stroman and engaging in a remediation program to learn more about his shooting spree, which also killed another man.”
Read the AP story as it appears in the Houston Chronicle.
This was the 8th execution carried out by the State of Texas this year, out of 28 nationwide.
In the state of Georgia, Wednesday’s execution of Andrew DeYoung was postponed as corrections officials sought to determine how to comply with a ruling from the Georgia Supreme Court to allow executions to be filmed. According to the Associated Press, “The video recording was requested by attorneys for another Georgia death row inmate who wanted evidence to show that Georgia’s reconfigured three-drug lethal injection procedure does not adequately sedate the inmate. … Experts say it would have been the first recording of an execution since 1992.”