July 20, 2011: Repentant White Supremacist Executed for Hate-Driven Murder of Muslim Store Owner; Judiciary Rejected Pleas from Victim for Clemency

Mark Anthony Stroman on his way to the death chamber. [Source: CBS DFW / London Daily Mail]Mark Anthony Stroman is executed for murdering a store owner he believed to be a Muslim in the days after the 9/11 attacks (see October 4, 2001 and After). A federal judge and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia rejected pleas from one of his victims, Rais Bhuiyan, to spare his life (see September 21, 2001 and (July 18, 2011)). Stroman, then a white supremacist and member of the Aryan Brotherhood, went on a killing spree in the Dallas, Texas, area after the 9/11 attacks, claiming it was his duty as an American to seek revenge for the attacks and citing the death of his sister in the attacks (a claim lawyers and authorities cannot verify). But since Bhuiyan began his attempts to win clemency for Stroman, Stroman claimed his mindset changed. He recently told a reporter, “I was an uneducated idiot back then and now I’m a more understanding human being.” Stroman is pronounced dead from lethal injection at 8:53 p.m. at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit. From the death chamber, Stroman asked for God’s grace and said hate in the world had to stop. “Even though I lay on this gurney, seconds away from my death, I am at total peace,” he said. “God bless America. God bless everyone.” Turning to the warden, he issues his final words: “Let’s do this damn thing.” [Chicago Tribune, 7/20/2011; CNN, 7/20/2011; Daily Mail, 7/21/2011]