[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, LA., IDAHO

[Rick Halperin]

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 aggravated assault with a firearm, 2 counts of 
resisting arrest by force or violence and one count of possession of a stolen 
firearm.

(source: WWL TV news)






IDAHO:

Motions to take death penalty off the table denied


The death penalty remains a possible sentence for accused cop-killer Jonathan 
Renfro.

Motions to take execution off the table for Renfro were denied Wednesday by 
District Court Judge Lansing Haynes during a pre-trial hearing at the Kootenai 
County Safety Building.

Filed by Renfro's public defense attorneys after several similar motions were 
denied last month, the motions considered Wednesday argued a variety of reasons 
Renfro, 27, should be spared execution if convicted of f1st-degree murder for 
the May 2015 killing of Coeur d'Alene Police Sgt. Greg Moore.

One of the motions denied called for the judge to preclude the death penalty 
because the Public Defender's Office receives inadequate funding to do its job 
effectively. Public defenders argued their case load in Kootenai County is too 
high, making it difficult for them to provide adequate representation for any 
defendant.

"Based on the evidence and those arguments, the court is going to deny the 
defendant's motion to preclude the death penalty," Haynes ruled.

Renfro was present at Wednesday's hearing at the Kootenai County Public Safety 
Building, donning a red-and-white striped jumpsuit.

Also in an another attempt to avoid the death penalty, Renfro's defense 
motioned to suppress video evidence gathered during Moore's interaction with 
Renfro, claiming it shows an unreasonable seizure.

According to police reports, Moore stopped Renfro around 1:30 a.m. when he 
walked down the sidewalk of a dark and quiet Coeur d'Alene neighborhood which 
had been targeted by car prowlers. Moore reportedly called in Renfro's driver's 
license information over the radio shortly before the shooting.

Kootenai County Public Defender John Adams said an unconstitutional seizure 
ruling would bump the first-degree murder charge down to a 2nd-degree murder 
charge. The death penalty cannot be invoked with a 2nd-degree murder case. That 
motion was also denied.

"This court finds that Mr. Renfro was never detained or if he was, slightly 
detained, during the call-in of information to the dispatch center," Haynes 
said. "That was a reasonable action by the police as it led to learning that 
Mr. Renfro was on probation and that further inquiry was reasonable police 
conduct."

(source: CDAPress.com)