30/05/02

In Texas il boia non fa sconti

Ucciso da un'iniezione nel penitenziario di Huntsville, Beazley aveva solo 17 anni quando commise l'omicidio per cui � stato condannato. In Texas solo l'anno scorso sono state effettuate 40 esecuzioni

EMANUELE GIORDANA*

Morire a 25 anni, accusati e giudicati per un reato commesso a 17 anni, ancora minorenni. La barbarie di stato (come non chiamare cos� la pena capitale?), ha colpito ancora una volta commettendo una doppia violazione delle regole di un diritto planetario che sempre pi� stati adottano. Napoleon Beazley � morto in Texas sull'asettico lettino di una prigione del braccio della morte per iniezione letale, in uno stato che si distingue per l'uso della pena di morte, una pratica inumana che ogni anno ammazza nel mondo almeno 2.500 persone (duemila solo in Cina!). L'assassinio di Beazley � per� doppiamente odioso proprio perch� Napoleon aveva solo 17 anni quando spar� e uccise John Luttig, 63 anni, per rubargli una Mercedes. 

Secondo l'accusa, Napoleon aveva preparato con due complici un'imboscata a Luttig e alla moglie per portargli via una vecchia macchina di dieci anni. Con premeditazione dunque, secondo il giudizio, confermata dal fatto che, nella macchina della madre di Napoleon, c'erano una pistola e un fucile e che il ragazzo, allora un promettente atleta di Grapeland, aveva un passato attraversato dall'uso di stupefacenti. Il processo a Napoleon non � stato per� privo di ombre. Il ragazzo � di colore ma si � ritrovato di fronte una giuria di soli bianchi: inoltre uno dei figli di Luttig � un importante giudice federale d'appello. Una miscela che si � coniugata col dato eclatante dell'applicazione della pena capitale in Texas, lo stato americano che uccide di pi�: 40 esecuzioni l'anno scorso e gi� 13 quest'anno. La quattordicesima vittima � stata Napoleon.

 La vicenda, come ormai accade quasi per ogni esecuzione americana, non � per� passata inosservata. Per Napoleon si sono mossi attivisti per i diritti umani, lo stesso Consiglio d'Europa e anche un grande leader religioso con un passato forte in difesa dei pi� deboli, l'arcivescovo sudafricano Desmond Tutu, Nobel per la pace. �Mi lascia attonito - ha scritto l'uomo che con Nelson Mandela ha combattuto contro l'apartheid - che il Texas e pochi altri stati degli Usa prendano dei ragazzi dalle loro famiglie per poi mandarli a morte�.

 Negli Stati Uniti sono stati uccisi nel 2001 63 uomini e tre donne, portando a 794 il numero dei prigionieri giustiziati da quando la Corte suprema americana ha sospeso la moratoria sulle esecuzioni nel 1976. Molti dei prigionieri nei bracci della morte sono persone di colore. Le sentenze di morte a minori di 17 anni sono prerogativa di cinque stati - ricorda l'emittente britannica Bbc - ma altri 17 stati consentono che la pena capitale sia applicata anche a ragazzi che ne hanno solo 16. Se ne hai 15 o meno, insomma , ti salvi.

 Sergio D'Elia, dell'organizzazione abolizionista internazionale Nessuno tocchi Caino, spiega che �gli Stati Uniti continuano a essere uno dei pochissimi Paesi al mondo a praticare la pena di morte nei confronti di coloro che erano minori al momento del fatto per cui vengono condannati. Anche nel 2001 hanno giustiziato minori. Questo tipo di esecuzione non va solo contro un'evoluzione interna dell'opinione pubblica americana rispetto alla pena capitale e in controtendenza rispetto agli Stati che apertamente dissentono (come nel caso dei governatori dell'Illinois o del Maryland che hanno deciso una moratoria delle esecuzioni), ma - prosegue D'Elia - viola il diritto internazionale. Viola cio� il Patto sui diritti civili e politici,firmato e ratificato anche dagli Usa ma con riserva sull'articolo 6, quello appunto riguardante l'esecuzioni di minori. Eppoi la Convenzione sui diritti del fanciullo, che gli Stati Uniti hanno firmato ma non ratificato. Sar� forse il caso di ricordare - conclude il segretario di Nessuno tocchi Caino - che per quel che riguarda le esecuzioni dei minori, gli Stati Uniti sono in compagnia di Pakistan e Iran, Paesi, specie quest'ultimo, che l'America giustamente critica proprio per le violazioni dei diritti umani�. Rispetto all'Iran, che secondo Amnesty International ha ucciso l'anno scorso almeno 127 persone, gli Usa ne hanno giustiziate "solo" 66. E il Pakistan solo una. Paesi canaglia? Da questo punto di vista sicuramente s�. Nessuno escluso. 

29 May, 2002

Texas killer executed despite world pressure

 Several US states allow executions for those under 18

 A 25-year-old murderer has been executed in Texas despite international pressure to review the case and a last-ditch appeal to the US Supreme Court.

Napoleon Beazley was 17 when he shot and killed John Luttig, 63, as he stole his Mercedes from the driveway of his house in 1994.

 Beazley's plea was rejected by the Supreme Court

 Opponents of Beazley's death sentence argued that it was "cruel and unusual punishment" to execute people for crimes they commit as children - and that Beazley's trial was prejudiced because he was black.

 In a printed statement released after his execution on Tuesday evening, Beazley apologised for the killing, calling the murder "senseless."

 But he also spoke out against his death sentence.

 "No one wins tonight. No one gets closure. No one walks away victorious," Beazley wrote.

 I am astounded that Texas and a few other states in the United States take children from their families and execute them

 Desmond Tutu 

Amnesty International, South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Council of Europe joined in calls for a review of his case.

 Beazley was convicted by an all-white jury, and there have been allegations, all denied, that prosecutors sought the death penalty only because the victim's son is an influential federal appeals judge.

 Texas, which executes more people than any other US state, is among five states that allow executions for criminals as young as 17, while another 17 states allow 16-year-olds to face the death penalty.

 "I am astounded that Texas and a few other states in the United States take children from their families and execute them," Archbishop Tutu wrote in his submission to the Texas parole board.

 Last-ditch attempts

 Beazley was pronounced dead at 1817 (2317 GMT) on Tuesday, nine minutes after being injected with lethal drugs at Huntsville prison.

 When asked if he had any final words, Beazley looked at his victim's daughter Suzanne Luttig and said: "No".

 He had not requested a final meal, prison officials said.

 His death came after a day of last-ditch attempts to earn a reprieve.

 Texas's parole board voted 10-7 on Tuesday against reducing his sentence to life imprisonment, and 13-4 against a reprieve.

 Ambush

 At the time of the killing, Beazley had been a popular student and athlete in Grapeland, East Texas, but had also been dealing in drugs for several years.

 He was carrying a pistol and had a shotgun in his mother's car when he and two others stalked and then ambushed Mr Luttig and his wife to steal their 10-year-old Mercedes.

 Beazley's was the 14th execution in Texas this year. The state carried out a record 40 executions in 2001.

 Since the US Supreme Court allowed states to reinstate the death penalty in 1976, 19 people who committed murder under the age of 18 have been executed across the United States, including 11 in Texas.  

Teen Death Sentences Spark Debate

DALLAS (AP) -- One shot a man in the head, twice, and then sped off with two friends in the dead man's Mercedes Benz.

 Another used a sawed-off shotgun to kill two robbery victims, including a man who refused to hand over a necklace. And a third helped a friend kill a 14-year-old girl whose testimony at a grand jury hearing led to the friend being charged with sexual assault.

 Few would dispute that these killers were cold-blooded and brutal. But their sentences -- death in all three cases -- are helping stir a debate in this country and abroad.

 That's because the killers -- Napoleon Beazley, Gerald Lee Mitchell and Whitney Reeves -- were each 17 years old when they committed their crimes in Texas, one of 23 states that allows offenders who committed crimes as juveniles to be executed.

 Mitchell was put to death in October and Beazley this week. With Reeves the last of the three still alive, some are asking: When is someone too young to be sentenced to death?

 ``Are we completely writing off these children. Is that it?'' asks Anne James, director of the Human Rights Project at American University. ``If you make an enormous error, there should be punishment -- but your whole life?''

 She and other human rights activists say they are aware of only seven countries, among them Iran, the Republic of Congo and Saudi Arabia, where juvenile offenders have been executed since 1990. They say none has more documented cases than the United States' 19 -- a number that has drawn quiet but growing criticism from some U.N. countries, including members of the European Union.

 But Dianne Clements, president of the victim-rights group Justice For All, is angered at those who put criminals such as Beazley, Reeves and Mitchell in the same category as ``children.''

 She notes that no state allows anyone younger than 16 to be sentenced to death. And the youngest person at the time of execution was 23.

 ``We do not execute children,'' she says. ``We execute guilty capital murderers.''

 Her Houston-based group supports the death penalty, including for 17-year-olds who kill.

 ``Times have changed. Crimes have changed. The types of juveniles committing crimes have changed,'' she says.

 Of the three Texas cases, the one that drew the most attention was that of Beazley, a 25-year-old who was executed by lethal injection Tuesday. Beazley, a popular student athlete from a tight-knit family, had no previous criminal record before he shot and killed 63-year-old John Luttig during a 1994 carjacking. He was 17.

 One of 29 Texas death row inmates who committed their crimes as juveniles, Beazley was the 11th such prisoner to be put to death in the state -- and the 19th in the United States.

 The same day Beazley was executed, Missouri's high court halted the execution of Christopher Simmons, who also committed murder at the age of 17. His attorney is banking on an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision on whether it is constitutional to execute the mentally retarded.

 Simmons isn't mentally retarded. But his attorney has argued that a ruling could also apply to young defendants because they are still developing emotionally and mentally.

 Even as violent crime among teen-agers has steadily dropped since 1993, polls show that the majority of Americans believe just the opposite -- influenced, in part, by high-profile school shootings and cases of even younger children accused of dropping their peers from windows or killing their siblings.

 Some states have imposed mandatory prison terms and toughened juvenile sentencing in other ways.

 Comparing 1990 figures with those reported in 2000, for example, the number of juveniles being held in institutions in Georgia rose 162 percent to 4,360. In Florida, the increase was 146 percent to 7,330 young inmates. The overall younger-than-18 populations rose by just over 25 percent in those states during the same period.

 ``I think to some degree the tougher-on-crime politicians upped the ante beyond what anybody could believe, sort of daring anyone to say 'no,''' says Vincent Schiraldi, president of the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that advocates alternatives to incarceration.

 But even in tough-on-crime states such as Texas, there are opponents to sentencing juveniles to death.

 ``They can't vote. They can't drink. They don't have all the rights of an adult,'' says state Rep. Toby Goodman, a Republican from Arlington who opposes such sentences.

 That sentiment puts him at odds with many Texans, from Gov. Rick Perry to the editorial writers at one newspaper who noted that Beazley ``was three months shy of his 18th birthday when he traded Luttig's life for a car.''

 ``In the eyes of the law he was old enough to know better and old enough to pay the price,'' said the editorial in the Huntsville (Texas) Item, published just days after Beazley was granted a brief stay of execution last summer.

 ``Nevertheless, let us mourn for him,'' it said. ``Not so much for his sentence of death as for what he might have done with his life.''

Texas executes man convicted of murder at age 17

By Lianne Hart, Special to the Tribune. Lianne Hart is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune newspaper; Tribune news services also contributed

May 29, 2002

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- Napoleon Beazley, convicted at 17 of killing the father of a federal judge, was executed Tuesday, the 11th inmate to be put to death in Texas since 1976 for a crime committed while a juvenile.

Beazley was put to death by lethal injection after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Gov. Rick Perry and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to commute his death sentence to life in prison.

Strapped to a gurney in the death chamber, Beazley, 25, turned his head to look at the daughter of the man he killed. When asked if he had any final words, Beazley paused, looked once again at the daughter and shook his head no.

 In a written statement released after his execution, Beazley wrote: "The act I committed to put me here was not just heinous, it was senseless. ... I'm sorry it was something in me that caused all of this to happen to begin with."

 Beazley's case attracted international attention because of his age and because the murder victim, a prominent East Texas oilman, was the father of a federal judge with professional ties to U.S. Supreme Court justices.

 Beazley was a star athlete, class president and small-time drug dealer in rural Grapeland when he and two friends hatched a plan to steal a car in 1994. While scouting the roads in the town of Tyler, they spotted John Luttig and his wife, Bobbie, driving home from Bible study in a Mercedes-Benz.

 The trio confronted the Luttigs after they stepped out of the car, prosecutors said. John Luttig, 63, was killed by two gunshots to the head. His wife survived by falling to the ground and feigning death.

 An anonymous tip led police to Beazley and his accomplices, Cedric and Donald Coleman. The Coleman brothers received life sentences in return for testifying against Beazley.

 Beazley was sentenced to death in 1995 by a jury unswayed by defense lawyers who argued that his age was a mitigating factor. Almost immediately, Beazley became a rallying point for groups opposed to capital punishment for juveniles.

 Beazley faced execution last year after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a federal reprieve. In an unusual move, three justices--Antonin Scalia, David Souter and Clarence Thomas--recused themselves from the case, citing professional ties with the victim's son, federal Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig of Richmond, Va.

 Four hours before the execution scheduled for Aug. 15, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a rare stay to study the case. That stay was vacated in April.

 In St. Louis on Tuesday, Missouri's high court blocked the execution of a man who committed murder at age 17 in 1993 until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on whether it is constitutional to execute the mentally retarded.

A lawyer for Christopher Simmons, 26, said the U.S. court's decision in the other appeal could be relevant to Simmons' case because arguments against executing the retarded might also apply to defendants who were under 18 when they killed.