By This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it | Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 08:00 PM

Update 8 p.m. Lawyers for Rais Bhuiyan, a shooting victim who is seeking to halt the execution of his attacker in the hopes of speaking with the condemned man about the crime, failed in a late attempt this evening to have a state judge in Travis County intervene in the case.

Visiting state District Judge Joe Hart commenced a hearing in the case about 7 p.m. on Bhuiyan’s request for a stay of the execution of Mark Stroman, who is scheduled to die this evening.

Stroman killed two men and injured Bhuiyan, all immigrants, during a crime spree in 2001 in which he has said he was seeking retribution for the September 11 terrorist attacks.

In dramatic, tearful testimony, Bhuiyan, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Bangladesh, told Hart that the attack left him blind in one eye, ruined his marriage and threw him into deep depression and poverty.

“I couldn’t believe I had to go through this in the best country in the world,” he said.

He said that had been told during the prosecution of the case to avoid speaking to Stroman and he only began to rebuild his life during a spiritual awakening in 2009.

Asked by his lawyer, Khurrum Wahid of Florida, why he wanted to speak to Stroman, Bhuiyan said: “I want to see him. I want to talk to him in person. I want to connect with him in a human way. I want to know many things, many questions.”

“I would love him to explain, why? How? When he shot me, I was bleeding to death. What was going through his mind? Did he ever think about his kid? I’m somebody’s kid as well. When I was crying ‘mom’ again and again, what was he thinking?”

Shortly after that response, Assistant Attorney General Edward Marshall informed Hart that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had issued an order prohibiting Hart from continuing with the hearing.

Hart, looking somber, ended the hearing.

During one in a series of subsequent phone calls, Marshall said: “Call the warden and tell them to get ready.”

It appears there is nothing else standing in the way of Stroman’s execution.

Update 3:40 p.m.

U.S. Distict Judge Lee Yeakel this afternoon refused to halt tonight’s scheduled execution of Mark Stroman of Dallas despite the pleas by one of Stroman’s victims.

Yeakel said in an order that the law does not give him the authority to intervene in the case.

He also noted that “the irreparable injury asserted by Bhuiyan — his claim of violation of the Crime Victims’ Rights statute being rendered moot — is outweighed by the damage to the operation of the criminal justice system as a whole that would result from this court’s granting the requested stay.”

Stroman remains scheduled for execution this evening.

Bhuiyan’s lawyers said earlier that they would immediately appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals if Yeakel refused to grant a stay in the case.

Earlier

Rais Bhuiyan said today that the only way he will get past the horrible psychological impact of being shot in the face while working at a Dallas convenience store in a hate crime following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is to sit down and talk with his attacker.

But that attacker, Mark Stroman, who killed two other immigrants during the crime spree that Bhuiyan survived, is scheduled for execution this evening.

This morning, a lawyer for Bhuiyan asked U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel in Austin to temporarily halt the execution to allow Bhuiyan a chance to speak with Stroman. Yeakel said he would rule on the request by early this afternoon.

“A lot of things I have to know from his mouth, to look into his eyes and to know his side of things,” Bhuiyon said after Yeakel adjourned court. “The trauma he caused, the mental anguish from the last nine years, it needs to come to an end.”

Bhuiyan, a 37-year-old from Bangladesh who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, was working as a convenience store clerk Dallas in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks when he was shot by Stroman, who according to testimony at his trial was a white supremacist who said he was out for revenge.

Stroman also fatally shot Waqar Hasan in his Dallas convenience store, and Vsudev Patel, a gas station attendant in nearby Mesquite. Both were immigrants — Patel from India and Hasan from Pakistan.

Bhuiyan, who works in information technology at a travel website, has said that his Muslim faith calls on him to forgive Stroman and he has previously said he wants to break the cycle of violence and spare Stroman’s life. He said he believes that Stroman was a product of his upbringing and has changed since the attack.

He sued Gov. Rick Perry and Texas prison and parole officials this month in state District Court in Travis County claiming that his rights as a crime victim have been violated. Particularly, he said, he was never told that he the prison system offered mediation to victims of crime who want to speak with an offender.

Bhuiyan’s lawyer, Khurrum Wahid of Florida, said in court today that Bhuiyan only learned about these type of meetings in June and has been trying to arrange one since.

Attorneys with the Texas Attorney General’s Office, which represents Perry and the other defendants, moved the case to federal court.

Wahid told Yeakel that victim offender mediations are often profound events that allow victims of crime the ability to move on with their lives.

“Mr. Buiyon was shot 10 years ago and has not yet felt that closure,” Wahid said. “When he found out about this (mediation), he felt absolutely compelled to talk to Mr. Stroman.”

Yeakel questioned whether he has the ability to halt an execution because of a pending civil lawsuit that does not involve the condemned man.

“Your job, judge, is to protect Mr. Buiyon’s civil rights,” Wahid said.

Assistant Attorney General Cynthia Burton argued that Buiyon was made aware of the potential for mediation years ago and brought his claims too late. She also contended that Yeakel does not have the ability to interfere with an execution order.

Click here for a Statesman story in which Buiyon explains the crime and its effect on his life and his decision to sue.

Source: http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/courts/entries/2011/07/20/man_shot_by_condemned_killer_a.html?cxntfid=blogs_austin_legal