• 21
  • July
    2011

The death penalty is generally considered to be reserved for those people who have been convicted of the most serious crimes, such as homicide. And the state of Texas is known as a state that does not hesitate to impose the death penalty. On Wednesday, 41-year-old Mark Stroman became the eighth inmate to be executed this year in Texas. Stroman killed two people shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In our representation of people facing child pornography allegations, which are also very serious charges in Texas, we understand that behind every charge is a human being. That's why Stroman's case interested us. He said, "I'm not the monster the media portrays me," as Michael Graczyk reports for the Houston Chronicle.

Stroman's statement is actually quite telling. When someone is accused of a serious crime, like homicide or child pornography, there is a rush to condemn. Even one of Stroman's victims - two were killed but a third was injured and survived - did not want Stroman to be executed.

The injured victim, Rais Bhuiyan, said, "Killing him is not the solution. He's learning from his mistake. If he's given a chance, he's able to reach out to others and spread that message to others," as Graczyk reports.

Stroman himself said he committed the crime out of "love, grief and anger" and "out of pure anger and stupidity," an anger that he took out on people in the Dallas area that he thought looked like they were from the Middle East.

Stroman's case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but according to Graczyk, Justice Antonin Scalia declined to hear it.

Source: Houston Chronicle, "Texas man executed for post 9/11 killing," by Michael Graczyk, 07/21/11