Texas Death Penalty: Youthful offenders should not be executed
 
The state of Texas executed Napoleon Beazley Tuesday night. He was 25
years old, and he had spent the last eight years behind bars. It shouldn't have happened. It all shouldn't have happened. Mr. Beazley would have been the
first to tell you that.

He was just 17 when he and 2 friends car-jacked a couple in their Tyler
driveway. In the process, he shot to death the husband, John Luttig. Mr.
Beazley senior class president, gifted athlete and good student shouldn't
have been living on the edge. He shouldn't have been dealing small
amounts of crack and hanging around with some bad kids. And he never
should have stolen the life of another. Brutally and without excuse.

When people do bad things, they get punished. But when kids do bad things
should they get punished by execution?

20 states either do not have the death penalty or currently don't impose
it. Of the remaining states, 10 set 18 as the minimum age for capital
punishment. Texas is 1 of just 20 states that will execute those who
committed crimes when under the age of 18. And Texas has by far the
largest number of youthful offenders awaiting execution.

Countries around the world do not use the death penalty the way the
United States does. International norms and agreements call for no
execution of people for crimes committed below the age of 18. Amnesty
International points out that if scheduled executions go forward "the
United States will have executed as many child offenders in 3 months as
the next worst perpetrator, Iran, has carried out in the whole of the
past decade."

As this country issues a clarion call for international human rights, the
call is being ignored by its own states, especially Texas. Age matters.
17-year-olds are too young to vote, smoke, drink or serve on juries, but
they're not too young to be put to death here.

Mr. Beazley didn't wave the flag of his youth. He wanted to be assessed
based on how he had conducted his life before and after that one terrible
night. Did that happen? His accomplices say they testified falsely as
part of their plea bargains. Others questioned the trial's fairness,
noting the selection of and influences on the jury.

Death penalty cases always have problems. But one of the biggest problems
is that Texas shows little mercy not even to its children.

(source: Editorial, Dallas Morning News)

Napoleon Beazley, whose case drew international attention to the
execution of those who commit capital crimes before the age of 18, was
put to death Tuesday night in Huntsville for the 1994 carjacking-murder
of a Tyler oilman.

The execution was carried out hours after the Texas Board of Pardons and
Paroles voted 10-7 against recommending that Gov. Rick Perry commute Mr.
Beazley's death sentence.

Mr. Beazley, 25, was sentenced to die after a Smith County jury found him
guilty of gunning down John Luttig in a botched carjacking. Mr. Luttig,
63, was shot at close range as he and his wife Bobbie returned home from
a Bible study. Ms. Luttig survived by falling to the ground and playing
dead as Mr. Beazley and 2 accomplices took the couple's 1989
Mercedes-Benz.

Mr. Beazley acknowledged his guilt after his conviction and offered a
tearful public apology to Mr. Luttig's family in an April hearing in
Tyler. In a recent televised interview, he commented on his age at the
time of the crime: "If I was 15, if I was 20, if I was 25, it doesn't
matter. It never should have happened."

Mr. Beazley appeared calm as he watched witnesses entering the death
chamber. When asked whether he had a final statement, Mr. Beazley looked
toward Suzanne Luttig of Tyler, the daughter of the victim, and paused.
He then shook his head and said, "No."

He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m.

In a 1-page typed statement released after his death, Mr. Beazley
described his crime as "not just heinous. It was senseless." He said he
was saddened that the was not given a 2nd chance, adding, "No one wins
tonight."

A high school class president, honors student and football star who was
described by some in his hometown of Grapeland as a crack-cocaine dealer,
Mr. Beazley was the 14th inmate executed in Texas this year and the
fourth this month.

He had requested that no family or friends witness his execution.

Mr. Luttig's daughter and FBI Agent Dennis Murphy of Tyler, a Luttig
family friend, witnessed the execution along with Smith County District
Attorney Jack Skeen and Assistant District Attorney Ed Marty.

Prison officials said only about 30 death-penalty supporters and
opponents demonstrated at the Walls Unit a relatively small number
compared with other high-profile executions.

28 offenders who were under the age of 18 when they committed their
crimes are on Texas' death row.

10 men who were convicted of their crimes when they were under the age of
18 have been executed since Texas resumed use of the death penalty in the
1970s.

456 killers are on death row in Texas.

9 people who committed murder in Smith County, where Tyler is located,
are on death row.

1 of those Smith County offenders on death row committed his crime before
turning 18.

1 man who is accused of committing murder before the age of 18 in Smith
County awaits trial.

Mr. Beazley came within hours of execution last August but received a
late stay from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Days before that stay, the Supreme Court made an unprecedented 3-3 ruling
not to grant Mr. Beazley a reprieve, with 3 justices abstaining because
of personal ties to Mr. Luttig's son 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Judge J. Michael Luttig.

The parole board then voted 10-6 against recommending commutation.

The case drew widespread attention because of Mr. Beazley's age at the
time of the slaying and because of his lack of prior convictions. Pleas
for clemency came from entities ranging from the European Union to
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, the American Bar Association,
the judge who presided over Mr. Beazley's capital murder trial and the
district attorney in Mr. Beazley's home county.

Dr. William Schultz, executive director of Amnesty International USA,
said in Washington on Tuesday that the execution violated international
law, and other officials with the human-rights group said that the United
States was now among only five countries, including Congo, Nigeria, Iran
and Saudi Arabia to execute such youthful offenders.

"The U.S. continues its shameful unwillingness to acknowledge the
failures of its capital punishment system - the failure to apply the
death penalty justly, the failure to protect innocent people from capital
prosecution and conviction, and the failure of the death penalty to
decrease crime," Dr. Schultz said.

Some of Mr. Beazley's supporters and defense team tried to suggest that
he didn't get a fair trial because he was black, his victim was a
prominent white man, and his case was heard by an all-white jury.

They also argued that Judge Luttig was too actively involved in the
prosecution, noting that the federal appellate judge moved his office to
Tyler for the trial and alleging that the district attorney's office
conferred with him too closely.

But Smith County prosecutors maintained that Mr. Beazley was legally an
adult under Texas law and that he and two accomplices came to Tyler,
stalked the Luttigs and gunned Mr. Luttig down without provocation in his
own driveway.

District Attorney Jack Skeen noted Tuesday that Mr. Beazley's defense
lawyers rejected or struck one black jury panelist and state and federal
courts rejected claims of prosecutorial bias in the striking of several
other black people from the jury.

"The legal issue on the age at which a defendant can be executed has
already been decided and was settled long before this case gained so much
national attention," Mr. Skeen said. "It's clear that Mr. Beazley
certainly knew what his actions were, made intentional choices, and under
Texas law, stands to receive the consequences of those actions as he
should."

Mr. Skeen and his former chief deputy prosecutor, David Dobbs, said the
ordeal of Mr. Luttig's family had been particularly difficult because of
what they termed an orchestrated effort by death-penalty opponents to
attack Mr. Luttig's son. Both said the judge was no more interested or
involved in his father's case than any other murder victim's relative.

"While people accused Mike Luttig of politicizing this case, he did
anything but that, and the way the case became politicized is through a
very public, deliberate campaign that has re-victimized him because of
his national stature," said Mr. Dobbs, who is now in private practice.
"What is being lost in the rhetoric and it seems deliberately obscured is
the fact that Mike and his sister Suzanne Luttig lost their father and
Bobbie Luttig lost her husband all for a vehicle."

Defense lawyer David Botsford of Austin said he was particularly
disappointed in the parole board's Tuesday vote because he believes the
Legislature could soon outlaw execution in such cases. He noted that a
bill that would've barred death sentences for young offenders passed the
Texas House in last year's legislative session before dying in committee.

"That's unfortunate that we are so bloodthirsty that we have to kill our
children," he said.

Pardons and Paroles Board member Brendolyn Rogers-Johnson of Duncanville,
1 of 7 members to recommend clemency, said Mr. Beazley's age was only 1
of a number of factors influencing her vote.

"I looked at the fact that he was not a repeat offender, whether or not
he would appear to be a continuous threat to society. I looked at his
background," she said, adding that her vote was "one of the most
difficult decisions I've ever had to make."

Board member Lynn Brown said the overriding factor in his vote against
clemency was the viciousness of Mr. Beazley's crime and the certainty of
his guilt. He said he interviewed Mr. Beazley in May, after defense
lawyers requested a board interview, and asked him whether his age should
be a factor in a clemency decision.

"He said, 'I have never put that forth as an argument; my attorneys put
that forth,'" Mr. Brown said. "I asked him, 'Should the fact that you
were age 17 have made the surviving victim any less terrified?' His
answer was no. I also asked him the question, 'Did the fact that you were
17 make this any less lethal to the victim who died?' And he said no."

Board Chairman Gerald Garrett of Austin, who voted to recommend clemency,
said the split vote from a board that usually votes unanimously should
not be viewed as a "signal" of a shift in the board's view of capital
cases involving young offenders.

Since reinstatement of the death penalty in the 1970s, Texas has executed
nine other people who committed capital crimes while under the age of 18.
Another 28 are on death row, including another Smith County offender
convicted of kidnapping and killing an 8-year-old boy.

"Many are suggesting ... that this is precedent-setting, that this is
some change in our mind-set. I would caution against that," Mr. Garrett
said of the board's Tuesday vote.

"The next application before us, if that person happens to have been 17
at the time of the crime and that's brought to us as an issue, it will be
thoroughly evaluated," he said. "But I would say that there won't be
another case brought before the parole board like Napoleon Beazley's. No
two cases are exactly alike."

(source: Dallas Morning News)

Napoleon Beazley, who gained worldwide attention for killing a Tyler man
when he was 17 years old, was put to death Tuesday evening in the death
chamber at the Huntsville "Walls" Unit.

Beazley was convicted and sentenced to death for the April 19, 1994,
killing of 63-year-old John Luttig. Beazley, who was his high school's
class president and a standout athlete, shot Luttig twice in the head
from nearly point blank range while trying to steal his Mercedes Benz.
Beazley had previously told friends he wanted to "jack a car" and find
out what it was like to murder someone.

In spite of a flood of e-mails and letters of protest from anti-death
penalty activist groups, only 2 dozen protesters were outside the "Walls"
Unit as Beazley's sentence was carried out. These protesters, in turn,
were faced with a similar number of reporters and cameramen documenting
their every move.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, who could have recommended
Beazley be given a stay of anywhere between 120, 180 and 480 days,
rejected his application for a reprieve at 11 a.m.

"Following a full and careful review of the petition, a majority of the
board has decided not to recommend a reprieve or a commutation of the
death sentence to a lesser penalty," the board said in a press release.
The board rejected recommending Beazley's sentence be commuted to life
imprisonment by a 10-7 vote and declined recommending a reprieve by a
13-4 vote.

At a 3 p.m. press conference, Texas Department of Criminal Justice public
information officer Larry Fitzgerald announced Beazley had arrived from
the Polunsky Unit in Livingston in the early afternoon, and had declined
a last meal.

"I would describe his demeanor as quiet," Fitzgerald said. "He was pretty
pensive, I think."

At a 5 p.m. press conference, Fitzgerald announced the United States
Supreme Court had declined to review Beazley's case, removing any
obstacle to the execution taking place.

After witnesses -- including Luttig's daughter Suzanne Luttig, Smith
County District Attorney Jack Skeen and assistant district attorney Ed
Marty -- were allowed into the viewing rooms, Beazley was asked if he had
any last words. Beazley, who had written out a final statement in
advance, turned his head and looked into the room holding the witnesses
and 2 members of the media. Beazley appeared to make eye contact with
Suzanne Luttig and paused for several moments before responding.

"No," he said simply, shaking his head. He then looked back up at the
ceiling and shut his eyes.

Beazley did, however, have a lot to say in his page-long written
statement, released to the media after the execution.

"The act I committed to put me here was not just heinous, it was
senseless," he wrote. "I'm sorry that I am here. I'm sorry that you're
all here. I'm sorry that John Luttig died."

Beazley also criticized the Texas justice system, writing, "I'm not only
saddened, but disappointed in a system that is supposed to protect and
uphold what is just and right can be so much like me when I made the same
shameful mistake."

The fatal dose of chemicals was started at 6:08 p.m., at which point
Beazley coughed violently 4 times with his head coming off the pillow. He
then sighed and was silent. He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m.

None of the witnesses said anything or expressed any emotion as the
sentence was carried out. They stared straight ahead, turning only after
the time of death was announced. They declined to speak to the media
afterward.

On April 18, 1994, the day before Luttig's murder, Beazley told his
friend Cedric Coleman -- who would be an accomplice in the crime -- that
he wanted to "jack a car." On April 19, he told a friend at school that
he "might be driving a (Mercedes) Benz soon."

That night, Beazley borrowed his mother's car and drove with Coleman and
his brother Donald to Tyler. On the way to Tyler, Beazley repeated his
intention to steal a car and said he wanted to find out what it was like
to kill someone. As they entered Tyler, Beazley spotted a 1987 Mercedes
driven by Luttig. Luttig and his wife Bobbie were returning from a trip
to Dallas when they passed Beazley and the Coleman brothers.

The trio followed the Luttigs to their house, at which time Beazley
stripped off his shirt and ran towards the car. Donald Coleman followed
him, carrying a sawed-off shotgun. Beazley opened the driver's side door
and fired one shot with his pistol, hitting Luttig in the head but not
killing him. He then fired at Mrs. Luttig and missed. Bobbie Luttig then
played dead on the ground, hoping that Beazley and Coleman would think
the shot fired by Beazley had hit her.

Beazley then returned to John Luttig and shot him again in the head,
killing him instantly. He then asked Coleman if Mrs. Luttig was dead, to
which he replied that she was still moving.

"Shoot the (expletive)," Beazley said. Coleman then said she had stopped
moving and was dead.

Beazley obtained his objective -- the Mercedes -- but only for a short
time. He quickly ran into a retaining wall and was forced to abandon it.
Beazley rejoined the Coleman brothers and returned to Grapeland. A few
days later, Beazley told a friend in conversation that he had committed
the crime and was arrested a short time later. When asked by his father
if he had indeed killed Luttig, Beazley said he had.

"It was a trip," he said.

The complete text of Beazley's final statement follows:

FINAL STATEMENT OF NAPOLEON BEAZLEY, TDCJ EXECUTION #999141:

The act I committed to put me here was not just heinous, it was
senseless. But the person that committed that act is on longer here -- I
am.

I'm not going to struggle physically against any restraints, I'm not
going to shout, use profanity, or make idle threats. Understand though
that I'm not only upset, but I'm saddened by what is happening here
tonight. I'm not only saddened, but disappointed that a system that is
supposed to protect and uphold what is just and right can be so much like
me when I made the same shameful mistake.

If someone tried to dispose of everyone here for participating in this
killing, I'd scream a resounding, "No." I'd tell them to give them all
the gift they would not give me ... and that's to give them all a 2nd chance.

I'm sorry that I am here. I'm sorry that you're all here. I'm sorry that
John Luttig died. And I'm sorry that it was something in me that caused
of this to happen to begin with.

Tonight we tell the world that there are no second chances in the eyes of
justice ... Tonight, we tell our children that in some instances, in some
cases, killing is right.

This conflict hurts us all, there are no SIDES. The people who support
this proceeding think this is justice. The people that think I should
live think that is justice. As difficult as it may seem, this is a clash
of ideals, with both parties committed to what they feel is right. But
who's wrong if in the end we're all victims?

In my heart, I have to believe that there is a peaceful compromise for
our ideals. I don't mind if there are none for me, as long as there are
for those who are yet to come. There are a lot of men like me on death
row -- good men -- who fell to the same misguided emotions, but may not
have recovered like I have.

Give those men a chance to do what's right. Give them a chance to undo
their wrongs. A lot of them want to fix the mess they started, but don't
know how. The problem is not in that people aren't willing to help them
find out, but in the system telling them it won't matter anyway.

No one wins tonight. No one gets closure. No one walks away victorious.

(source: Huntsville Item) 

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- Napoleon Beazley, whose death sentence for a murder
committed at 17 stirred national debate over capital punishment for youths, was executed Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to spare his life.

When asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Beazley looked
toward Suzanne Luttig, the daughter of the victim, and said "no" before
he was given a lethal injection.

Beazley was convicted of killing the father of a federal judge during a 1994 carjacking. He repeatedly expressed remorse for shooting John Luttig, 63, while trying to steal the man's Mercedes.

"It's my fault," Beazley, 25, said during a hearing last month. "I violated the law.
I violated this city, and I violated a family --  all to satisfy my own misguided emotions. I'm sorry. I wish I had a second chance to make up for it, but I don't."

Texas is one of five states that allow the death penalty for crimes
committed by 17-year-olds.

Before Tuesday, 18 inmates in the United States -- including 10 in Texas
-- had been executed since 1976 for a murder committed when the killer was younger than 18.

"Texas must recognize that the brutal practice of executing children is in complete and utter defiance of international law,"  said Sue Gunawardena-Vaught, director of Amnesty International USA's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty.

In Austin, about 100 death penalty opponents rallied at the governor's
mansion to protest Beazley's execution.

Earlier Tuesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 10-7 against recommending that Beazley's sentence be commuted to life in prison and
13-4 against a reprieve.

Beazley's lawyers made a last-ditch appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court,
renewing questions about his age and challenging the makeup of the all-white jury that convicted their black client. The court turned down the appeal, and Gov. Rick Perry denied his request for a 30-day reprieve.

"To delay his punishment would be to delay justice," Perry said.

Luttig was the father of J. Michael Luttig, a judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and former clerk or adviser to Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, David Souter and Antonin Scalia.  All three did not participate in high court rulings on Beazley's case.

At the time of the slaying, Beazley was a popular student and athlete in
Grapeland, where he had also been dealing drugs for several years. Prosecutors said he and two companions ambushed Luttig and his wife.

Beazley shot Luttig once, turned the gun on his wife but missed, then
returned to the wounded man and fired again point-blank into Luttig's head. He stepped through a pool of blood to go through the man's pockets to get the car keys. He hit a wall while driving away and was forced to abandon the damaged vehicle.

The two companions received life in prison.

Death at 7 p.m
Convicted as a juvenile, that's the fate that awaits Napolean Beazley today
                 William Walker - WASHINGTON BUREAU
                 LIVINGSTON, Texas — Texas is set to execute
                 Napolean Beazley at 7 p.m. today in what legal and
                 civil rights experts call a brutal miscarriage of
                 justice.

                 Tonight's state-sanctioned killing in President
                 George W. Bush's home state — barring an unlikely 11th hour legal reprieve — is
                 expected to fan the flames of a death penalty debate that has already been steadily
                 burning for weeks as a growing list of states re-examine the blatant racial
                 inequalities and legal flaws of capital punishment.

                 "I don't see a moratorium happening here," Beazley says, his eyebrows arching as
                 he looks a reporter right in the eyes. "In Texas they're pretty gung-ho to kill
                 people."

                 At age 17, a young offender, Beazley shot and killed John Luttig, a prominent
                 Texas oilman from nearby Tyler, in a horribly botched carjacking. His trial was
                 riddled with legal errors, false testimony, racial overtones and powerful influence.

                 An all-white jury took just 30 minutes to reach the death verdict in the case of the
                 former high school football star, class president and straight-A student, who had
                 enlisted in the Marines to attend college on the GI bill.

                 Beazley, sitting in a steel-meshed cage in the stark death row prison here, has
                 never made excuses for what he did. He feels that would be disrespectful to the
                 Luttig family.

                 Now 25, and looking at least a decade older, he says he'd accept a lifetime behind
                 these barbed-wire fences, locked down in a 3.5-by-4.5 metre cell.

                 "It was a heinous crime. I don't want to give excuses because it would be like
                 walking on that man's grave," he says over the telephone from behind Plexiglas.
                 "But since then I've just wanted to change, to try to make something positive out
                 of my life. There should be a chance for rehabilitation. Here, they just don't
                 consider that at all."

                 Two hours up the highway in tiny Grapeland, Texas (pop. 1,491), it's Mother's
                 Day. Her eldest son set to die, Rena Beazley sits in the living room of the house he
                 grew up in, her head resting on a balled fist, her eyes lost in a faraway stare.

                 "My son is not a monster. He doesn't deserve to die," she says. "People assume
                 he came from a bad home, that he's a thug and all that. When people find out
                 about him, that he was a good kid, that both his parents work and they have a
                 nice home, they don't really understand it."

                 The Beazleys have long lived a middle class lifestyle. School and church were
                 important family backbones. Father Ireland has put in 32 years at the local steel
                 plant. Rena is a teller at Grapeland Bank.

                 Ireland Beazley has already been to the local funeral home to make arrangements.
                 Tonight, the son he coached in Little League baseball is to be strapped to a gurney
                 at the Huntsville death chamber and injected with lethal potassium chloride to halt
                 his heartbeat.

                 "It's in God's hands now," Rena Beazley says. "We believe He has the last say in
                 life and in death. We pray for the Luttigs and we pray for our son. That's all we
                 can do."

                 It was April 19, 1994, when Beazley, along with brothers Cedric and Donald
                 Coleman, was cruising around looking for a Mercedes Benz to steal. The
                 threesome wanted to sell it to a local chop shop for cash they needed for their
                 small-time business dealing crack cocaine.

                 When Luttig got out of his crème-coloured Mercedes and came at Beazley, who
                 was running up the man's driveway, Beazley says he fired his Haskell .45-calibre
                 pistol.

                 The crime stunned Grapeland. It turned out Luttig's son, Michael, was a
                 prominent conservative federal judge on Virginia's Fourth District court of appeal,
                 known for his pro-death penalty, anti-abortion rulings. He is widely considered
                 today to be on Bush's short list of future Supreme Court nominees.

                 Michael Luttig moved his office, clerks and all, back to his hometown of Tyler
                 for Beazley's trial. He helped prosecutors shape a strategy of questioning
                 prospective jurors that resulted in the all-white jury.

                 One of those jurors later told a defence investigator preparing Beazley's appeal:
                 "That n... got what he deserved." The juror's wife then wrote the Texas parole
                 board informing them her husband was racist and may not have been objective.
                 An appliance repairman, the juror has long refused to fix machines brought in by
                 black customers, his coworkers told the defence investigator.

                 Luttig also helped the prosecution shape a strategy that saw the Coleman brothers
                 threatened with the death penalty, although neither fired their weapons, then
                 offered a "deal" to avoid it if they testified against Beazley. Both took the deal. To
                 secure a death verdict in Texas, the prosecution must prove the accused is a risk
                 to re-offend. The Colemans testified Beazley was a cold-blooded killer who
                 wanted to know what it was like to murder and bragged he'd do it again.

                 Both brothers, now in prison, have signed sworn statements recanting their
                 testimony as false. They say they offered it to avoid death themselves.

                 The issue of executing juvenile offenders is also highly controversial. Illinois,
                 which placed a moratorium on its death penalty (as has Maryland, citing racial
                 bias), will no longer execute young offenders. The issue prompted South Africa's
                 Archbishop Desmond Tutu to write the Texas government asking for clemency in
                 Beazley's case.

                 "I am astounded that Texas and a few other states in the United States take
                 children from their families and execute them," Tutu wrote. Only seven American
                 states have executed young offenders since 1976.

                 But Bush's Texas is in a league of its own.

                 From 1995, when he was elected governor, until now, the Huntsville death
                 chamber has executed 183 prisoners in total, compared to only 85 in the 13 years
                 prior to the advent of Bush's "compassionate conservatism."

                 This year, 12 more prisoners have been executed and 455 remain on Texas' death
                 row.

                 "What is going on down here," says Beazley's lawyer, Walter Long of Austin, "is
                 really an appalling slaughter without any proper appellate review. There is a lot of
                 foment out there nationally about the death penalty, but this is Texas and it's not
                 too encouraging."

                 Last Friday, the Supreme Court rejected Beazley's best chance appeal for a stay.
                 Three of the Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and
                 David Souter, disqualified themselves because each had worked professionally
                 alongside Michael Luttig.

                 Long is to file yet another appeal this morning.

                 The Texas parole board is to also vote today on a petition for clemency which it
                 has granted only once in 30 years.

                 Beazley is to be shackled this morning and driven by prison van 60 kilometres to
                 the Huntsville death chamber. There, a prison minister will be with him. Beazley
                 will select a final meal. He'll be given a chance to write down his final thoughts,
                 which he may express aloud just prior to the lethal injection.

                 "What's important to me is that somebody gave their life that night and it's still not
                 time to make excuses for that," Beazley says from behind the Plexiglas. "I
                 acknowledge the flaws in my trial. But few trials are perfect. I have to accept
                 that.

                 "But I don't deserve this for the same reason John Luttig didn't deserve what
                 happened to him. These are tragedies in both of our lives. I'm trying to show
                 people that a person can change, but it seems like this life we have, we just throw
                 it away every day."

                 The board's recommendation,
                 completed about seven hours before
                 Beazley was to be executed by
                 injection, was sent to Gov. Rick
                 Perry, who could issue a one-time
                 30-day reprieve.

                 Because the 25-year-old Beazley
                 was a juvenile at the time of the
                 killing, his case has focused
                 international attention on Texas, the
                 country's most active execution state.

                 The Board of Pardons and Paroles
                 voted 10-7 against recommending
                 that Beazley's sentence be commuted
                 to life in prison and 13-4 against a
                 reprieve to halt the punishment.

                 The vote marked the second time the
                 parole board has refused to
                 recommend a life sentence for
                 Beazley. Last August, the panel voted
                 10-6 for the execution, but it was
                 stopped when a state appeals court decided to review a late appeal filed by
                 the prisoner's lawyers.

                 The last time the board commuted a death row inmate's sentence to life was
                 in June 1998, for Henry Lee Lucas. Lucas, who gained notoriety as a
                 confessed serial killer and then recanted his confessions. He avoided lethal
                 injection and was sent to general prison population after questions were
                 raised about the conviction that got him to death row. He died of natural
                 causes last year in prison.

                 Beazley would be the 14th Texas inmate put to death this year and the fourth
                 this month.

                 "Texas must recognize that the brutal practice of executing children is in
                 complete and utter defiance of international law," said Sue
                 Gunawardena-Vaught, director of Amnesty International USA's Program to
                 Abolish the Death Penalty.

                 The courts have disagreed, although his lawyers made another try Tuesday in
                 the U.S. Supreme Court. The court last week refused to halt the punishment
                 or review the case.

                 In their latest appeal, lawyers again cited his age at the time of the crime and
                 challenged the makeup of the all-white jury who convicted Beazley, who is
                 black, as reasons to stop the punishment.

                 Beazley's execution 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.

                 When he was arrested, Beazley was not a juvenile in Texas, which is among
                 five states that allow the death penalty for 17-year-olds and where Beazley
                 was among 29 death row inmates who were under 18 at the time of their
                 crime.

                 Seventeen other states allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for
                 16-year-olds.

                 Beazley didn't deny gunning down John Luttig, 63, during a carjacking
                 outside Luttig's house in Tyler in April 1994.

                 "I don't like to give ... explanations or excuses," Beazley said earlier this
                 month from death row. "It goes back to a justification for what happened.
                 And there is just no justification."

                 Luttig was the father of J. Michael Luttig, a judge on the Richmond,
                 Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and former clerk or adviser to
                 three Supreme Court justices. Those three justices — Clarence Thomas,
                 David Souter and Antonin Scalia — have not participated in high court
                 rulings on Beazley's case.

                 Beazley was president of his high school class in Grapeland in East Texas and
                 a star athlete but also had been dealing drugs for years. He was carrying a
                 .45-calibre pistol and had a shotgun in his mother's car when he and two
                 companions stalked and then ambushed Luttig and his wife to steal their
                 10-year-old Mercedes.

                 The judge did not respond to a request for comment about Beazley's
                 impending punishment but said last summer the loss of his father was so
                 overwhelming there was no room for anger. 

The fate of condemned killer Napoleon Beazley was in the hands of the
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, whose members were deciding only
hours before Beazley was scheduled to be executed Tuesday whether to
recommend his death sentence be commuted to life in prison.

Beazley faces lethal injection for killing the father of a federal judge
8 years ago when he was 17, renewing debate over the execution of young
offenders and again placing focus on capital punishment in Texas, the
nation's most active execution state.

"I did not want to risk asking for a decision and there be some
last-minute matter of importance a member may want to ponder," Gerald
Garrett, chairman of the 17-member parole board, said, explaining why the
panel would not vote until Tuesday.

The board's recommendation then would go to Gov. Rick Perry, who also
could issue a 1-time 30-day reprieve.

Beazley, set for execution after 6 o'clock Tuesday evening, would be the
14th Texas inmate to die this year and the 4th this month. His age at the
time of the crime, however, was the rallying point for death penalty
opponents.

"Texas must recognize that the brutal practice of executing children is
in complete and utter defiance of international law," said Sue
Gunawardena-Vaught, director of Amnesty International USA's Program to
Abolish the Death Penalty.

The courts have not agreed, although his attorneys said another try in
the U.S. Supreme Court was likely Tuesday. The court last week refused to
halt the punishment or review the case.

Beazley's execution 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.

When he was arrested, Beazley was not a juvenile in Texas, which is among
five states that allow the death penalty for 17-year-olds and where
Beazley was among 29 death row inmates who were under 18 at the time of
their crime.

Another 17 states allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for
16-year-olds.

Beazley didn't deny gunning down John Luttig, 63, during a carjacking
outside Luttig's house in Tyler in April 1994.

"I don't like to give ... explanations or excuses," Beazley, 25, said
earlier this month from death row. "It goes back to a justification for
what happened. And there is just no justification."

Luttig was the father of J. Michael Luttig, a judge on the Richmond,
Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and former clerk or adviser
to three Supreme Court justices. Those 3 justices Clarence Thomas, David
Souter and Antonin Scalia have not participated in high court rulings on
Beazley's case.

Beazley was president of his high school class in Grapeland in East Texas
and a star athlete but also had been dealing drugs for several years. He
was carrying a .45-caliber pistol and had a shotgun in his mother's car
when he and two companions stalked and then ambushed Luttig and his wife
to steal their 10-year-old Mercedes.

Beazley shot Luttig once, turned the gun on his wife but missed, then
returned to the wounded man and fired again point-blank into Luttig's
head. He went through the man's pockets to get the car keys and hit a
wall while driving away with the car. The damage forced him to abandon
the vehicle.

"The decision to seek the death penalty was based on the calculated,
deliberate, premedidated, predatory hunt-down nature of the crime," said
Smith County District Attorney Jack Skeen, who prosecuted Beazley.

"I would make the same decision today," he added.

Beazley faced execution last August and the parole board voted 10-6
against commuting his punishment to life. He was then was spared by a
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decision. When that reprieve was lifted,
a new execution date was set for Tuesday.

While not volunteering for execution, 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."

Judge Luttig did not respond to a request for comment about the impending
punishment of Beazley, but said last summer the loss of his father was so
overwhelming there was no room for anger.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

The odds weren't always stacked against Napoleon Beazley, but they are
today. The once-promising high school scholar and athlete was poised to
attend Stanford Law School one day. Instead, he sits on death row,
waiting to die after 6 p.m.

Now 25, Beazley killed the father of a federal judge and is on death row
in an election year. It seems unlikely that anyone with the power to stop
his execution will do so. That's the brutal sum of Beazley's situation.
Gov. Rick Perry should listen to a chorus of voices urging him to spare
Beazley. He should issue a 30-day stay, then direct the Texas Board of
Pardons and Paroles to recommend clemency.

Such an act won't be popular in an election year, but it would be the
right and courageous thing to do. By doing so, Perry would be sending a
message that the state shows real power when it shows compassion.

Beazley, who is African American, was 17 when he killed John Luttig
during a botched carjacking. Not even Beazley makes excuses for what he
did. Is it justice, though, for the state to seek the ultimate punishment
for a crime committed when the defendant was not even old enough to vote?
It is a question worth asking in a state that leads the nation in
executions and is unchallenged in its record of executing offenders who
committed murder as minors.

Ten of 18 such executions nationwide have been carried out by Texas
during the past three decades, according to the Death Penalty Information
Center. In Texas, 30 offenders who murdered as minors are awaiting
execution, according to a state official -- most are minorities.

Beazley should be punished, but justice is more than punishment. Justice
should be tempered with mercy and above all, it must be fair.

The arguments to spare Beazley because of his age at the time he killed
are so compelling that the judge who presided over Beazley's trial asked
Perry to commute Beazley's sentence.

Smith County Judge Cynthia Kent wrote to Perry last year: ". . . it is my
recommendation that due to his age at the time of the offense (17) that
you consider carefully and grant his request that his sentence be
commuted from the death sentence to a sentence of life imprisonment."

The governor should heed Kent's plea.

Beazley has drawn other unlikely supporters who have asked the governor
and parole board for clemency: the prosecutor of his native Houston
County, a former death row warden and 15 Texas lawmakers. In their
request to the governor, the legislators cited a bill that would have
raised the age of eligibility for the death penalty to 18. The bill
passed the House last year, but died in the Senate. That bill no doubt
will be filed again in 2003, when the legislature next meets. It might
pass, but that will be too late for Beazley.

His fate is in Perry's hands. The governor may feel that his hands are
tied by re-election considerations. Support for the death penalty in
Texas is strong, and Perry is a proponent.

In considering Beazley's case, the governor should weigh new research
that indicates that mental development -- including one's conscience --
continues beyond the teen-age years.

"It's been seen that the average child who has a good enough environment
will continue developing their super ego, their conscience, into their
20s," said Dr. Beverly Sutton, director of the psychiatric residency
program for the Austin State Hospital.

Sutton said research conducted at Harvard University's McClean Hospital
and the University of Illinois using neuroimaging (X-rays) to study the
physiology of the brain has made progress on that front.

"What I'm hoping is that they stop this nonsense of executing people who
commit murders as juveniles," she said.

Aside from age, Beazley's case raises other serious questions about
whether the death penalty is fairly applied without regard to race or
ethnicity.

* Beazley was tried and sentenced by an all-white jury after African
Americans were excluded from the jury pool.

* In an affidavit, Robin Norris, who represented Beazley in one round of
appeals said he did not raise claims relating to racial bias, as he
should have, despite a juror's statement to an investigator that the
"nigger got what he deserved."

We urge the governor to consider those issues carefully and to show mercy.

(source: Editorial, Austin American-Statesman)

In "Without Sanctuary: Postcards of Lynching in America" by James Allen,
there is page after appalling page of photographs of dead people, mostly
men, mostly African American, shortly after they were lynched by their
neighbors.

The sight of the abused bodies is horror enough, but the faces of the
people around the body -- the faces of the killers -- are terrifying in
their complacency and self-satisfaction.

How could this have happened? Where is everyone else? Didn't anyone try
to stop it? How could Allen Brooks be lynched in downtown Dallas on March
3, 1910? Who is Bill, who wrote on the back of the picture postcard of
Brooks' lynching "All OK and would like to get a post from you!" What was
in his heart, and what was in the hearts of, in James Allen's words, "the
community's best citizens, lurking just outside the frame?"

Napoleon Beazley is scheduled to be executed today. He is convicted of
murdering John Luttig, the father of a federal judge. It was a brutal,
senseless crime. Beazley, who had never been in trouble with the law
before, and who was, by all accounts, a church-going, responsible,
A-student who fell in with a rough crowd, was a 17-year-old high school
student when he committed it. According to the laws of the United States,
Texas and the world, he was a child.

The countries that continue to allow execution for crimes committed by
children are Iran and the United States of America, although Iran has
disavowed the practice. In the past 10 years, Pakistan, China and Yemen,
not known for their sensitivity to human rights, have outlawed execution
for crimes committed as a child. And yet in Texas, where a 17-year-old
cannot vote, sign a contract or serve on a jury, 30 men are on death row
for crimes they committed while they were children, and eight others have
been executed since 1990.

The Friends Meeting of Austin, joining with the Mount Zion Missionary
Baptist Church of Grapeland and the Progressive Missionary Baptist Church
of Crockett, will lurk outside the frame no longer. We step forward to
say that this is wrong, and that this, too, is murder. We have declared
ourselves a community of sanctuary for those on death row in Texas who
committed their crimes as children. We can no longer stand by, averting
our eyes from the fact that our government is killing men for crimes they
committed as children.

As a community, rather than a place, of sanctuary, we remind everyone
that we, as much as those convicted of crimes, are human, and that the
choices of love and hate, brutality and mercy are always before each of
us. The wrong done by Napoleon Beazley is not remedied by his death at
the hands of our government. The suffering of the Luttig family is not
annulled by adding to the suffering of the Beazley family. We hope to
find ways to bring healing and mercy to all those, victims and
perpetrators, wronged by this tragedy.

Religious people understand that no action, however driven by hate or
brutality, separates us finally from the love and mercy of God. All of
us, religious or not, know that vengeance hardens our hearts and
increases our suffering. Because Napoleon Beazley was lost in fear and
brutality at the moment of his crime does not mean that we, reflecting
adults acting as a community, must act in the same spirit. We can choose
mercy. We can choose reconciliation, rather than retribution.

People were lynched in the United States for generations because their
communities allowed it. Napoleon Beazley is awaiting execution now,
because we, virtually alone in the world, still allow the barbaric
practice of executing people for crimes they committed as children. If a
group of vigilantes were dragging a child off to lynch him, would we turn
away? Is the pending execution of Napoleon Beazley different because the
process is slower?

(source: Opinion; Kelley is the clerk of the Peace and Social Concerns
Committee for the local Quaker meeting; Austin American-Statesman)

Nobody contests that Napoleon Beazley murdered John Luttig of Tyler on
the night of April 19, 1994. Even Beazley himself admits to shooting
Luttig with a .45 caliber pistol in the head from three feet away while
trying to steal Luttig's Mercedes.

"The only reason I'm here is because of me," Beazley said in an August
2001 interview with The Huntsville Item.

Still, a large number of anti-death penalty activists and a horde of
American and international media are expected to be in Huntsville today
as Beazley faces a 2nd execution date this evening. The reason for the
attention has nothing to do with Beazley's guilt or innocence, but his
age: Beazley was 17 years old -- a minor -- the night he ended Luttig's life.

Today, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles is set to vote on whether
to recommend to Gov. Rick Perry that Beazley's death sentence be commuted
to life.

Before the night of April 19, 1994, Beazley appeared to be on his way to
becoming a Texas success story. The class president of Grapeland High
School, Beazley was a member of the football team and was the runner-up
in the school's "most popular" competition. However, Beazley was in
possession of some less than wholesome desires.

The night before Luttig's murder, Beazley told his friend Cedric Coleman
-- who would be an accomplice in the crime -- that he wanted to "jack a
car." The next day, he told a friend at school that he "might be driving
a (Mercedes) Benz soon."

That night, Beazley borrowed his mother's car and drove with Coleman and
his brother Donald to Tyler. On the way to Tyler, Beazley repeated his
intention to steal a car and said he wanted to find out what it was like
to kill someone. As they entered Tyler, Beazley spotted a 1987 Mercedes
driven by Luttig. Luttig and his wife Bobbie were returning from a trip
from Dallas when they passed Beazley and the Coleman brothers.

The trio followed the Luttigs to their house, at which time Beazley
stripped off his shirt and ran towards the car. Donald Coleman followed
him, carrying a sawed-off shotgun. Beazley opened the driver's side door
and fired 1 shot with his pistol, hitting Luttig in the head but not
killing him. He then fired at Mrs. Luttig and missed. Bobbie Luttig then
played dead on the ground, hoping that Beazley and Coleman would think
the shot fired by Beazley had hit her.

Beazley then returned to John Luttig and shot him again in the head,
killing him instantly. He then asked Coleman if Mrs. Luttig was dead, to
which he replied that she was still moving.

"Shoot the (expletive)," Beazley said. Coleman said she had stopped
moving and was dead.

Beazley obtained his objective -- the Mercedes -- but only for a short
time. He quickly ran into a retaining wall and was forced to abandon it.
Beazley rejoined the Coleman brothers and returned to Grapeland. A few
days later, Beazley told a friend in conversation that he had committed
the crime and was arrested a short time later. When asked by his father
if he had indeed killed Luttig, Beazley said he had.

"It was a trip," he said.

The death sentence given to Beazley for the crime on March 17, 1995 by a
Smith County jury has drawn the ire of a number of activist groups, who
feel Beazley's actions as a juvenile should not be grounds for capital
punishment.

"At 17, Napoleon Beazley wasn't old enough to buy cigarettes or vote, but
he was old enough to be sent to death row," author Shawn E. Rhea wrote in
the September 2001 issue of Savoy magazine, who quoted one person as
saying Beazley was "a kid from a fine family with a good background."

"While the rest of the world has agreed that rehabilitation must win out
over punishment as the overriding objective in responding to crimes of
children, Texas is set to execute a young offender whose rehabilitative
potential was testified to by a stream of trial witnesses who had known
him for years," says one column written by Amnesty International and
found on the Canadian Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty's Web site.
"If he lived in China, or Yemen, or Kyrgyzstan, or Kenya, or Russia ...
Napoleon Beazley would not be suffering this fate."

Amnesty International has also insinuated that the influence of Luttig's
son, a federal appeals court judge, might have played a role in Beazley's
sentence.

"While we have the utmost sympathy for the suffering of the Luttig
family, we are concerned by the role that the victim's son, a federal
judge, played in the proceedings," the group said in a press release.

The 43-nation Council of Europe has also urged for Beazley's sentence to
be commuted, with Council President Lord Russell-Johnston and Secretary-
general Walter Schwimmer making a written plea to Perry on Beazley's behalf.

"We call on you now to show restraint in the case of Napoleon Beazley
whose life now depends entirely on your decision," they wrote. "It is a
matter of human decency to right the wrong before it is too late."

While much attention has been placed on the efforts to commute Beazley's
sentence, strong support for his execution exists as well.

"(We sought the death penalty) based on the facts of the crime," Ed
Marty, Smith County assistant district attorney told the Item in August,
2001. "There is all this breast beating from all these people with
Amnesty International. They have absolutely forgotten about John Luttig."

The Houston-based Activist group Justice For All maintains a Web site
called prodeathpenalty.com, on which they take issue with those who would
want to have Beazley's death sentence commuted.

One columnist ripped into Rhea's story in Savoy magazine, writing, "This,
dear reader, is what is passing for logic on the the left side of the
African-American political spectrum these days ... Because Beazley
couldn't by a pack of Kools, the reasoning goes, he shouldn't be held
accountable for cold-blooded murder."

Another column on the site condemns citizens of European Union nations
for "whining" about Beazley's execution.

"Shut up about America's death penalty laws. And you can climb off our
backs about our gun laws, too," the column says. "Funny how none of the
countries worried about America's death penalty or gun laws when they
needed us ... We deserve some compensation for keeping them safe. The
cost should be either to take our death row inmates (to their countries)
or dummy up about how the death penalty is applied in America."

Regardless of the arguments, Beazley's fate lies in the hands of an
appeal before the United States Supreme Court. Barring a stay of
execution from that appeal, or an unexpected move from Perry, Beazley
will be executed by lethal injection in the death chamber at the
Huntsville "Walls" Unit sometime after 6 p.m. today.

That sentence seems to be one Marty has no problems with.

"I think the people of Texas understand, and ultimately, that's what I
care about," he told the Item in August 2001. "I think that the people of
Texas understand that under these facts, Napoleon Beazley deserves a
death sentence."

"How can you let this happen in your town?" the writer asked. "You should
do something about this."

"This," which the writer, a French citizen, mentioned in their e-mail,
was the execution of Napoleon Beazley, scheduled to take place this
evening in the death chamber at the Huntsville "Walls" Unit. Beazley,
condemned to death for a 1994 killing in Tyler, has gained worldwide
attention because he committed the crime at the age of 17.

E-mails from around the world have deluged The Huntsville Item and
members of its staff, increasing speculation that large numbers of
protesters will be in town today. Solid numbers on protesters and members
of the media that will be in attendance, however, have been difficult to
come by.

"I know that Amnesty International has sent some faxes and e-mails trying
to get their people out," Larry Fitzgerald, Public Information Officer
for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, told The Huntsville Item
last week. "As for members of the press, I really don't know. A lot of
them don't even tell me they're coming anymore; they just show up."

Fitzgerald said he thinks a fair number of people will show up for the
execution, but the numbers will not be comparable to those in town for
the executions of Gary Graham or Karla Fay Tucker, both of whom drew
hundreds of protesters and dozens of reporters.

"I don't think we'll have anything like that," he said. "We certainly
won't have anything like the Black Panthers and the Klan here (like the
Graham execution)."

At least one worldwide media organization will be in town for the execution.

"We're planning to have someone there," said Bill Smee, senior
supervising producer of "CNN Presents," which did a documentary on the
events surrounding Beazley's 1st scheduled execution date in August of
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