Austin-American-Statesman -

Editorial

Conversation from death row

Napoleon Beazley's adulthood will be a short one -- it began on death row and is scheduled to end there today.

Beazley was 17 when a Smith County jury sentenced him to die for killing John Luttig, 63, in a botched 1994 carjacking. When he arrived on death row, Beazley was the youngest inmate there. Now 25, Beazley is scheduled to be executed by chemical injection.

There is no question about Beazley's guilt. He killed Luttig, a prominent Tyler businessman and father of a federal judge, because Beazley and his gang wanted to steal Luttig's Mercedes-Benz.

It was a senseless, brutal murder that stunned 2 quiet East Texas towns. The casual violence in Luttig's upscale neighborhood sent shock waves through Tyler. And it rocked the sleepy Grapeland community where Beazley was the toast of the town. There, Beazley was known for his promise: president of his senior class; honor student and star high school athlete.

 Though there is no question about Beazley's guilt, his case still raises questions about the death penalty in Texas. Should minors (younger than 18) be sentenced to death? Is Texas' criminal justice system racially biased? Are death row inmates entitled to effective counsel throughout the legal appeals process? Can murderers be rehabilitated?

 Those questions are being raised by some unlikely people. State District Judge Cynthia Kent, who presided over Beazley's trial, sent a letter to Gov. Rick Perry last year asking him to commute Beazley's sentence to life. She cited Beazley's age at the time of the murder. Cindy Garner, the district attorney in Beazley's home county, also wrote Perry asking for leniency, noting that Beazley had no prior criminal record. A Grapeland City Council member and former warden of death row, George Pierson, also wrote state officials to oppose Beazley's execution.

 Beazley's case is troubling for other reasons. It shakes our beliefs about family and community. Beazley was from a Christian, two-parent home. A search for answers about how and why a young man in command of his future -- voted runner-up for Mr. Grapeland High School -- would kill, took us to death row in Livingston. American-Statesman editorial writer Alberta Phillips interviewed Beazley last week, and excerpts follow.

 American-Statesman: What was the hardest adjustment about prison?

 Napoleon Beazley: It's different being on death row than being in prison, because you have the other element to think about. That kind of outweighs what's going on in prison -- knowing you are on death row and that you are here to die. When you know you are here to die, you start focusing on ways to live or how you live. That becomes important to you.

 You were tried by an all-white jury after blacks were struck from the jury pool. You were 17 at the time of the murder. Do you think you got justice from the legal system?

 Justice. That is a big word, a big word. You understand I'm biased, right?

 Personally, as far as my growth goes, I can't sit up and think about those things in those terms, because I have to look at myself and say, "If it weren't for you, none of those things would have happened."

 What does your case teach us about capital punishment?

 You do look at my case and say, "OK, look, these are the problems in the system we need to correct." But personally, I can't make that argument for myself. I'm sorry, but I just can't do that.

 Many people have asked you this question, but how did you find yourself at a place where you took a man's life? You were an honor student with dreams of going to Stanford Law. What happened?

 Oh, man. As far as giving details, that is something I really can't do for you because I don't want anything I say to come off as trying to justify what happened. There is no justification for what happened. . . . I made a bad choice . . . a very bad choice. A shameful, heinous, senseless -- whatever synonym you can think to describe it, it's all that. I made a lot of bad choices before I got here. That one was the poorest one I made.

 If you can't say why it happened, then when did you cross the line? What went through your mind when you went out carjacking and you shoot and kill a man?

 I believe every good act, every heinous thing, is first conceived in thought. Once you plant that seed in your head of what you are going to do, the rest is going through the mechanics. When Cedric Coleman (an accomplice who planned the carjacking) brought this crime to my attention, the details, and he asked , "You down with that?" I told him, "Yeah. I'm down." That's when it happened. Not that night (of the murder). But when I said yes to it, because that was my time to say no. The seed was planted.

 You've talked about how badly you were ridiculed by blacks for "acting white," for speaking proper English, making good grades and carrying yourself a certain way. Black kids called you "white boy" for hanging with white kids. That affected you?

 Yeah, sure. But since coming here, I've come to understand that racism only affects us as much as we allow it to. I allowed those things to affect me. But call it isolation. You isolate a group of people to the point where they have no identity. That peer pressure, where you're not black enough for the blacks, not white enough for the whites and you are left alone. I think that is what causes that feeling of isolation. I didn't belong.

 Before I got here, I spent so much time, so much energy and effort, in doing things so people would like me. Being this and being that, just to fit in. When I got here I learned that I'm going to be myself. For me to come here and do that and have people still like me, it's a very important lesson to learn.

 Are you afraid to die?

 I'm not afraid to die. Do I want to die -- hell no.

 When you die, on your tombstone you have two things; the day you were born and the day you die. There's that dash in the middle that tells people how you lived. How I live is important to me. Dying is easy. It's the living that most people find really hard.

 I want something positive to come out of this no matter what happens to me. If any blessing doesn't come to me directly, as long as somebody is blessed by the experience. To me that is important, and that is what I'm focused on.

 How have you filled in that dash in the middle?

 I used to want to be black . . . I moved away from being what's black to being what's human . . . I understand . . . that certain things transcend race and gender, and those things are what I look at now in people.

Houston Chronicle 

High court won't halt Beazley's executionBoard to vote on reprieve request

 By JANET ELLIOTT

The U.S. Supreme Court Friday refused to halt the execution of Napoleon Beazley, who was 17 when he fatally shot the father of a federal judge eight years ago. Beazley's lawyer, Walter Long of Austin, said the court declined to stay Tuesday's lethal injection or take up his appeal.

 "That won't deter me from going back on Tuesday," said Long, who admits the last-minute appeal will be a long shot. Long said he doesn't know whether the high court refused to take the case because of procedural issues related to Beazley's state appeals. He said the new appeal will invoke the court's original jurisdiction. As happened last summer, three justices did not participate.

 Justices Antonin Scalia, David Souter and Clarence Thomas all have personal ties to J. Michael Luttig, a judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. Luttig's father, John Luttig, was killed by Beazley during a 1994 carjacking in Tyler. Last August, when Beazley was nearing execution, the court voted 3-3 against a stay. 

Long said he believes Friday's vote was 6-0. Beazley's youth and lack of a criminal record have been cited by hundreds of supporters from around the world who have asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to stop the execution. 

The board plans to vote Tuesday morning on Beazley's requests for a reprieve or commutation to life in prison. Any recommendations by the board would then go to Gov. Rick Perry, who must agree. 

If the board denies any relief, Perry could issue a 30-day reprieve. In an interview from death row Wednesday, Beazley, now 25, said he planned to spend his last days trying to be a good example for his fellow death row inmates. "I see this as an opportunity to show people what really matters in life. If May 28 comes and I'm executed, then I feel like something positive will come out of that because I've lived that way," he said.

MAY 27, 2002

Man Who Killed at 17 Is Scheduled to Die9 months after he came within hours of execution, Napoleon Beazley, 26, whose case has prompted debate over the execution of those who commit murder before the age of 18, is scheduled to die by lethal injection tomorrow night in Texas.

The Supreme Court on Friday denied Mr. Beazley's request for a stay and review of his case. His lawyers had argued that executing Mr. Beazley, who was 17 when he killed John Luttig, 63, in a botched carjacking, would violate the Eighth Amendment's provision against cruel and unusual punishment.The lawyers also argued that executing an inmate who was under 18 at the time of his crime would violate international treaties on civil and political rights.Just as they had last August, when Mr. Beazley had another appeal before the Supreme Court, 3 justices, Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter and Clarence Thomas, disqualified themselves because each had had a professional relationship with the victim's son, J. Michael Luttig, a federal appeals judge in Virginia.Mr. Beazley's lawyer Walter C. Long said on Friday that he would file 1 final petition with the Supreme Court tomorrow morning. Also tomorrow morning, the 17-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles will vote on Mr. Beazley's petition for clemency in the form of a temporary reprieve or a commutation to a life sentence. Last August, the board voted 10 to 6 against clemency, a slim margin in a state where the pardon board's votes are often unanimously in favor of execution.Mr. Beazley shot Mr. Luttig, who was a civic leader and church elder in Tyler, Tex., twice in the head in April 1994 while he and 2 friends tried to steal Mr. Luttig's Mercedes-Benz from his driveway. Mr. Luttig's wife, Bobbie, escaped injury by falling to the pavement and playing dead.Last August, about 4 hours before Mr. Beazley was to be executed, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a stay. When that court lifted its order last month, Mr. Beazley's trial judge, Cynthia Stevens Kent, who last August asked Gov. Rick Perry to commute the sentence because of Mr. Beazley's age, set the execution date.International opposition to Mr. Beazley's execution is mounting because of his age at the time of the crime. Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa recently wrote a letter to the Texas pardons board asking for clemency. "I am astounded that Texas and a few other states in the United States take children from their families and execute them," Bishop Tutu wrote.In this country, there are signs of growing opposition to the death penalty for those who commit murder before they are 18. Of the 38 states that permit the death penalty, 22 permit the execution of juvenile offenders and only 7 of those states have executed juvenile offenders since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970's.This year Indiana abolished the death penalty for people who commit murder before the age of 18. Mr. Beazley, who was president of his senior class and a football star, lived in Grapeland, a tiny town about 60 miles from Tyler. He had no arrest record, though he has said he sold crack and owned a gun. He has apologized to the Luttig family and said there was no excuse for what he had done."Napoleon Beazley should be executed for the predatory nature of this case," Ed Marty, an assistant district attorney who handled the case on appeal, said in a telephone interview on Friday. "Why did he have to shoot John Luttig to get his Mercedes?"Mr. Marty dismissed the defense's contention that while juvenile offenders should be held accountable and punished for their crimes, they are not as morally culpable as adults. In their appeal, Mr. Beazley's lawyers cited a growing body of scientific evidence that the brain is still developing through adolescence and so those under 18 are developmentally unable to "control their actions as a mature adult would."Mr. Marty said, "That's junk science."Paddy Burwell is a pardons board member who voted for clemency for Mr. Beazley last year. "I lay awake thinking about that the other night," Mr. Burwell said, referring to the issue of the killer's age. "I could not commute a person just because he was 17 at the time of the crime.But Mr. Burwell, 69, a rancher and a supporter of the death penalty, said that tomorrow he would again vote for clemency. "I don't think he got a fair trial," Mr. Burwell said. Every member of Mr. Beazley's jury was white. "He was not tried by a jury of his peers," Mr. Burwell said. Mr. Beazley is black.Mr. Burwell estimated that in three years on the board, he has cast 50 to 60 votes for execution while supporting petitions for clemency 5 or 6 times.Mr. Burwell said that in the Beazley case he was troubled by reports that the victim's son, Judge Luttig, had moved his office to Tyler from Virginia for the trial and that prosecutors regularly consulted with him. In addition, Mr. Burwell said he did not think prosecutors had proved Mr. Beazley's "future dangerousness," which is necessary for a death sentence.Mr. Beazley needs nine votes from the pardons board for clemency. Mr. Burwell said he expected the vote to be close.The pardons board makes recommendations on executions to the governor, who can either accept or reject those recommendations. The board has voted for clemency only once in the last 30 years, in 1998. Texas has executed 12 people this year.[my note: Texas has executed 13 people this year]

Tyler Morning Telegraph

MAY 26, 2002

TEXAS - Impending juvenile executionBEAZLEY RESIGNED TO DIE

His case could likely change Texas law, or affirm the law that allows the execution of condemned killers who were 17 or older when they committed capital murder.Napoleon Beazley, now 25, remains oblivious to the national and international attention his case has garnered. He wants to live - but is resigned to die Tuesday for the 1994 fatal shooting and robbery of Tyler civic leader John Luttig. 

The 63-year-old retiree was gunned down in the driveway of his home as his wife Bobbie, who is now terminally ill, lay in terror on the garage floor.Beazley won't speculate on his seemingly overnight transition from an honor student/track star/girl chaser to a crack-dealing perpetrator who randomly sought Luttig for his car and shot him point-blank in the head."That would be justifying it and there is no justification for what happened," Beazley said in an interview a week after a judge set his May 28 execution date.

"There is no turning point where I can say I decided to be bad. It's a process - an acorn doesn't become an oak tree overnight," he added. "A lot of people have personal problems and don't wind up on death row. I blame myself."Having grown up in one of the only upper middle-class families in the small East Texas town of Grapeland, Beazley acknowledged he didn't need the Mercedes he and 2 accomplices stole from Luttig.Beazley, who publicly apologized for his crime during a court hearing in Tyler, said he is genuinely remorseful. Prosecutors claim his tearful confession of guilt to a packed courtroom was nothing more than a display to beef up his plea for clemency to the state Board of Pardons & Paroles."I can understand why they would think that but I never wanted it to seem like a display," Beazley said. 

"I would rather have talked to the Luttigs in person but I couldn't do that. That (court hearing) was my only chance."He said wants to live so he can show remorse to the Luttig family and to people in Tyler, which has not been the same since the random slaying that turned the community upside down.Beazley doesn't embrace his attorneys' arguments that he should be spared because he was 17 when he killed Luttig. Beazley - who can only hope for life in prison if his death sentence is set aside - insists he is no longer a threat to anyone and wants to live so he can prove he's changed.

"Ever since the incident happened, I've been apologizing," Beazley said. "If I didn't care about what I had done, I wouldn't care about changing what's in me. It's easy to die but it's hard to find a reason to live."Smith County District Attorney Jack Skeen Jr. is angered when he hears of Beazley's "so-called remorse.""True remorse is actions and behavior of a defendant following the commission of a crime," Skeen said. 

"All of Beazley's actions including when he was interviewed by officers expressed no remorse. He denied he was involved and was still trying to get away with it."Beazley and brothers Donald and Cedric Coleman, also of Grapeland, were arrested following a Crimestoppers tip more than 45 days after Luttig was killed."He (Beazley) still had the .45- caliber weapon and tried to hide it at an uncle's house; he still had the tennis shoes he wore when he stepped in Mr. Luttig's blood," Skeen said.

 "When confronted by officers, he didn't tell them he wished he hadn't done it. Instead, he lies and says he had not been to Tyler that night." Donald Coleman, 26, and 28-year-old Cedric Coleman are serving life without parole in federal prison for their part in the fatal carjacking. Neither fired any gunshots during the incident.If Beazley's sentence is commuted to life in prison, he would be eligible for parole after serving 30 years because life without parole does not exist in the Texas prison system.Beazley's attorneys have filed last-minute requests for commutation of his sentence to the Board of Pardons & Paroles and to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Their primary argument is his age - an argument backed by 18 Democratic legislators, civil rights groups worldwide, Tyler's NAACP, the Houston County district attorney, and by state District Judge Cynthia Kent. She presided over Beazley's trial and set his execution date, but wrote a letter to the governor asking him to spare the killer's life due to his age. The judge later said her letter was a "principled objection."Austin attorneys David Botsford and Walter Long, who represent Beazley, also argue his trial was prejudiced by an all-white jury. In their appeal to the parole board, they claim juror James Jenkins later told a defense investigator, "the nigger got what he deserved.""I never said that," Jenkins told the Tyler Courier--Times-Telegraph on Friday.

"I've never been prejudiced in my life. That's a bald-faced lie. I never heard anyone on the jury say anything racist." AGE RAMIFICATIONSBeazley's age at the time of the 1994 capital murder has become the subject of worldwide debate. The United States is the only nation that permits the execution of 17-year-olds, and scores of politicians and activists are backing efforts in Texas to make killing minors illegal.If Beazley were spared due to his age, the ramifications could be detrimental, Skeen said.There currently are 30 inmates on Livingston's death row who were 17 when they committed capital murder.There is one more who received the death penalty but has not yet made it to the Polunsky Unit in Livingston. Known as Smith County's most violent career criminal, Patrick Horn was barely 17 in 1991 when he gunned down 8-year-old Chad Choice, dismembered his body and buried his bones in shallow graves. 

Horn terrorized Chad's mother for years with ransom notes and even left the little boy's skull in a grocery sack in front of the child's uncle's house. A note with the skull read: "You only paid part, so here is a part."Chad's fate was not discovered for 5 years. By that time, Horn had robbed two banks and participated in the fatal carjacking of an elderly Smith County fruit vendor.Now 28, Horn was already serving a life sentence in federal prison for his other crimes when a Smith County jury decided he should die for killing Chad. Horn currently is in a Georgia federal penitentiary, and will be transferred to death row after his trial judge sets an execution date. "If a vote of the Board of Pardons & Paroles grants clemency for Beazley, other defendants who were 17 like Pat Horn may not be executed," Skeen said. "That would be a collapse of Texas law."Long was not aware of Horn's case until he was contacted by the newspaper, but said he would add it to his list of 30 cases to lobby the Legislature for a change in the age limit for execution."It will change, it will have to change," Long said. "I will help attorneys who have these cases.

"Late Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied two of Long's requests to spare Beazley's life. The high court voted down a writ petition that could have commuted the sentence to life in prison, and refused to grant a stay of execution.Three justices who last year abstained from considering Beazley's case again abstained from the vote. 

They have connections to Luttig's son, who is a federal judge in Virginia.Long said he plans to file another petition Tuesday to the Supreme Court, and will ask the governor for a 30-day reprieve.Meanwhile, the parole board is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to recommend clemency for Beazley. If the board does recommend clemency, Gov. Rick Perry would make the final decision.

TEXAS----impending juvenile execution:

Man Who Killed at 17 Is Scheduled to Die

9 months after he came within hours of execution, Napoleon Beazley, 26, whose case has prompted debate over the execution of those who commit murder before the age of 18, is scheduled to die by lethal injection tomorrow night in Texas.

 The Supreme Court on Friday denied Mr. Beazley's request for a stay and review of his case. His lawyers had argued that executing Mr. Beazley, who was 17 when he killed John Luttig, 63, in a botched carjacking, would violate the Eighth Amendment's provision against cruel and unusual punishment.

 The lawyers also argued that executing an inmate who was under 18 at the time of his crime would violate international treaties on civil and political rights.

 Just as they had last August, when Mr. Beazley had another appeal before the Supreme Court, 3 justices, Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter and Clarence Thomas, disqualified themselves because each had had a professional relationship with the victim's son, J. Michael Luttig, a federal appeals judge in Virginia.

 Mr. Beazley's lawyer Walter C. Long said on Friday that he would file 1 final petition with the Supreme Court tomorrow morning.

 Also tomorrow morning, the 17-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles will vote on Mr. Beazley's petition for clemency in the form of a temporary reprieve or a commutation to a life sentence. Last August, the board voted 10 to 6 against clemency, a slim margin in a state where the pardon board's votes are often unanimously in favor of execution.

 Mr. Beazley shot Mr. Luttig, who was a civic leader and church elder in Tyler, Tex., twice in the head in April 1994 while he and 2 friends tried to steal Mr. Luttig's Mercedes-Benz from his driveway. Mr. Luttig's wife, Bobbie, escaped injury by falling to the pavement and playing dead.

 Last August, about 4 hours before Mr. Beazley was to be executed, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a stay. When that court lifted its order last month, Mr. Beazley's trial judge, Cynthia Stevens Kent, who last August asked Gov. Rick Perry to commute the sentence because of Mr. Beazley's age, set the execution date.

 International opposition to Mr. Beazley's execution is mounting because of his age at the time of the crime. Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa recently wrote a letter to the Texas pardons board asking for clemency. "I am astounded that Texas and a few other states in the United States take children from their families and execute them," Bishop Tutu wrote.

 In this country, there are signs of growing opposition to the death penalty for those who commit murder before they are 18. Of the 38 states that permit the death penalty, 22 permit the execution of juvenile offenders and only 7 of those states have executed juvenile offenders since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970's.

 This year Indiana abolished the death penalty for people who commit murder before the age of 18.

 Mr. Beazley, who was president of his senior class and a football star, lived in Grapeland, a tiny town about 60 miles from Tyler. He had no arrest record, though he has said he sold crack and owned a gun. He has apologized to the Luttig family and said there was no excuse for what he had done.

 "Napoleon Beazley should be executed for the predatory nature of this case," Ed Marty, an assistant district attorney who handled the case on appeal, said in a telephone interview on Friday. "Why did he have to shoot John Luttig to get his Mercedes?"

 Mr. Marty dismissed the defense's contention that while juvenile offenders should be held accountable and punished for their crimes, they are not as morally culpable as adults. In their appeal, Mr. Beazley's lawyers cited a growing body of scientific evidence that the brain is still developing through adolescence and so those under 18 are developmentally unable to "control their actions as a mature adult would."

 Mr. Marty said, "That's junk science."

 Paddy Burwell is a pardons board member who voted for clemency for Mr. Beazley last year. "I lay awake thinking about that the other night," Mr. Burwell said, referring to the issue of the killer's age. "I could not commute a person just because he was 17 at the time of the crime.

 But Mr. Burwell, 69, a rancher and a supporter of the death penalty, said that tomorrow he would again vote for clemency. "I don't think he got a fair trial," Mr. Burwell said.

 Every member of Mr. Beazley's jury was white. "He was not tried by a jury of his peers," Mr. Burwell said. Mr. Beazley is black.

 Mr. Burwell estimated that in three years on the board, he has cast 50 to 60 votes for execution while supporting petitions for clemency 5 or 6 times.

 Mr. Burwell said that in the Beazley case he was troubled by reports that the victim's son, Judge Luttig, had moved his office to Tyler from Virginia for the trial and that prosecutors regularly consulted with him. In addition, Mr. Burwell said he did not think prosecutors had proved Mr. Beazley's "future dangerousness," which is necessary for a death sentence.

 Mr. Beazley needs nine votes from the pardons board for clemency. Mr. Burwell said he expected the vote to be close.

 The pardons board makes recommendations on executions to the governor, who can either accept or reject those recommendations. The board has voted for clemency only once in the last 30 years, in 1998. Texas has executed 12 people this year.