Reprieve for killer debated
Posted on 05/28/2002 6:13:26 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Reprieve for killer debated
State board may review youth-offender issue in execution set for today
05/28/2002
LIVINGSTON, Texas - Texas parole board members were mulling the fate of death-row inmate Napoleon Beazley, whose conviction for killing the father of a federal judge when he was 17 has renewed debate over executing young offenders.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles was to vote Tuesday on whether to recommend to Gov. Rick Perry that Mr. Beazley's death sentence be commuted to life.
"You don't want to make a decision that will turn out to be ill-advised because of some information that came in later," said Gerald Garrett, chairman of the 17-member panel. "I thought the appropriate thing to do in this case was to allow things to go through the weekend.
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"It's my premise that my colleagues will be spending a good portion of this weekend ... going over the facts and circumstances and having their decisions made when they come to work on Tuesday."
Mr. Beazley's lethal injection was scheduled for after 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Now 25, Mr. Beazley was condemned for fatally shooting John Luttig, 63, during a carjacking outside Mr. Luttig's home in Tyler in April 1994. Mr. Beazley was identified as the gunman. Two companions with him received life prison terms.
The former high school class president and star athlete at his high school in Grapeland in East Texas does not deny the killing.
"This is a crime, a mistake on my part," he said from death row. "It's something I'm very sorry for."
Mr. Beazley's execution, the fourth scheduled this month in Texas, also would make him the 11th prisoner in the state and the 19th in the United States to be put to death since 1976 for a murder committed when the killer was younger than 18.
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"The United States Supreme Court has already ruled that a 16-year-old can be executed for capital murder," said Smith County District Attorney Jack Skeen, who prosecuted Mr. Beazley. "Beazley was about three months from being 18 years old. Under Texas law a 17-year-old can be executed for capital murder."
Texas is among five states that set the minimum age for a death sentence at 17. Seventeen states allow it for 16-year-olds.
Mr. Beazley has been in this situation before. Facing execution last August, the parole board voted 10-6 against commuting his punishment to life in prison. Mr. Beazley then was spared when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed to look at an 11th-hour appeal from his attorneys and halted the scheduled injection. When the court lifted its reprieve, a new execution date was set for Tuesday.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to halt the punishment or review the case.
Mr. Luttig, the man Mr. Beazley killed, was the father of J. Michael Luttig, a judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., and a former clerk or adviser to three Supreme Court justices. Those three justices Clarence Thomas, David Souter and Antonin Scalia did not participate in the high court ruling on Mr. Beazley's case.
Mr. Beazley's attorneys said it was likely that they would return to the Supreme Court on Tuesday with a last-day attempt in the courts to halt the execution.
While not volunteering for execution, Mr. Beazley refused to embrace the flurry of legal maneuvers and international attention on his case as gratifying.
"I can't say that," he said. "In reconciling with the situation, it's more important to have peace with those people involved. If you have the whole world that supports you but you still have the people directly affected by this case that don't, that makes a world of difference."
In Virginia, Judge Luttig did not respond to a request for comment about the impending punishment. Last summer, he said the loss of his father was so overwhelming there was no room for anger.
I will be praying all day that my state of Texas does the right thing and we send him off to "winkin, blinkin' and nod".
I'm just wondering if his accomplices are on death row. And if not, then why not? One of the clinchers of this thought for me was in watching the movie "The Fugitive." The doctor got the death sentence and was able to finally clear his name while firmly placing the blame on two others who were hauled away by the police in the end. Would anyone else see a travesty of justice if the others didn't get the death penalty while he did? Yet you know unequal application of the death penalty is a quite common occurrance.
Before everyone jumps on me, I do believe that as soon as you commit a violent crime, you can lose all expectation of living through the commission of that crime. If you kill someone in commission of a crime (or premeditated murder), you lose all expectation to live, period. I think it's just the inconsistency of application that bothers me, along with the probable innocents who have been put to death and those exonerated before execution.
I hope that Texas does the right thing and carries this sentence out.
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