Valkyrie
28th May 2002, 22:28
May 28, 2002
Texas Board Won't Stop Execution of Man Who Killed at 17
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:14 p.m. ET
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- The Texas parole board on Tuesday rejected requests to commute the death sentence of Napoleon Beazley, who was 17 when he killed the father of a federal judge in 1994.
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 nation'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 attorneys 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-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.
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.
Texas Board Won't Stop Execution of Man Who Killed at 17
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:14 p.m. ET
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- The Texas parole board on Tuesday rejected requests to commute the death sentence of Napoleon Beazley, who was 17 when he killed the father of a federal judge in 1994.
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 nation'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 attorneys 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-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.
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.