July 3, 2002, 10:47PM

Byrd son fighting for life of killer

Four years after father’s dragging death, Ross Byrd speaks about his change of heart over executions

By STEPHEN DOVE
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

When Ross Byrd left the Jasper County trial of the man who masterminded his father’s 1998 dragging death, he told the press, “One down, two to go.”

Minutes earlier, John W. “Bill” King became the first of two white men sentenced to death for the racially motivated murder of James Byrd Jr., a black man. A third man was sentenced to life in prison.

Throughout King’s trial, Byrd told reporters he wanted his father’s killers to receive the death penalty for the gruesome killing. His father was chained to the back of a pickup truck and dragged to his death.

King’s execution date looms with his state appeals nearly exhausted, and Byrd is speaking out about the white supremacist’s fate.

But this time, he is fighting to save the life of the very man who took that right from his father.

On Wednesday, Byrd traveled to the state prison in Huntsville to lead a 24-hour fast and prayer vigil on King’s behalf. He was joined by dozens of supporters and anti-death penalty advocates that included Martin Luther King III, whose father was assassinated in 1968, longtime social activist %@!#$& Gregory and former Houston Mayor Pro Tem Jew Don Boney.

“When I heard King had exhausted his appeals, I began thinking, `How can this help me or solve my pain?’ and I realized it couldn’t,” Byrd said.

Jasper County District Attorney Guy James Gray said King has unsuccessfully used every state appeals option available.

Allen Richard Ellis, King’s appeals attorney, said he will file a federal court appeal in mid-August. He said that appeal could be King’s last chance unless the federal court allows him to open new appeals at the state level.

There is no hard and fast rule for setting an execution date after a final appeal is denied. Ellis said King still has enough appeal options left that discussing an execution date is premature.

King’s lawyer said he learned about the prayer vigil Wednesday afternoon.

“It’s a wonderful gesture,” Ellis said. “I think it’s a great example for all of us to live in a spirit of forgiveness instead of revenge.”

Although Byrd initially supported the death penalty in King’s case, he said his attitude began to change as the reality of his loss set in. Byrd said he now believes the death penalty is wrong in all cases and is hoping King’s sentence will be commuted to life in prison without parole.

“To want to see the men who killed my daddy die by the state is the same for me to go out and kill them myself,” Byrd said in a news conference before leaving for Huntsville.

The conference was held in the same community center where one of the state’s largest grass-roots, anti-death penalty movements began two decades ago. Shape Community Center was a meeting point for advocates of former death row inmate Clarence Brandley, who was released from prison when his sentence was overturned in 1989.

Byrd attributed his change on King’s sentence to religious conviction.

“It’s the big picture we’re trying to look at, and the big picture is God says, `Thou shall not kill,’ ” Byrd said.

Gregory stood beside Byrd wearing a sandwich board that bore the same Scriptural passage in bold letters. He said the message from Byrd and other activists gathered for the vigil was a simple belief that “any form of killing is wrong,” even if performed by the state.

King, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said Byrd’s stance on the execution of John King reflects the SCLC position that capital punishment violates basic human rights of all people.

“It’s not a black or white issue,” he said. “It’s a right or wrong issue.”

King invited children and volunteers gathered at Shape to join Byrd in praying for the convicted murderer during the vigil that runs through noon today.

Boney, who helped organize the vigil, said he did not know whether John King knew about Byrd’s actions. He said no effort had been made to have the two men meet. Boney also said no one in the group had officially contacted Gov. Rick Perry to ask for clemency, but he is hopeful the prayer vigil would attract the governor’s attention.

Ellis said he did not think his client was aware of the rally, but he said King would not be offended that a black man was praying for him. The lawyer said King’s racist beliefs were “grossly over-represented” in trial testimony.

1) Effort to get city councils to adopt moratorium resolutions

2) Review of Napoleon Beazley action

3) Texas Bar Association to vote on moratorium resolution

4) Texas Defender Service needs volunteers

5) 3rd Annual March for a Moratorium set for October 12, 2002. Save the Date!

6) TMN Online Petition and updated website

Texas Moratorium Network

http://www.texasmoratorium.org

Greetings moratorium supporters!

First, we want to welcome about 400 new members to the newsletter this month. These new people may have come to us various ways. They may have recently visited Sister Helen Prejean’s Moratorium Campaign website, or signed up for the newsletter on the TMN website or at the recent Rolling

Thunder event in Austin. No matter how you got here, we hope you stick

around and help us achieve a moratorium on executions in Texas.

If you ever want to be removed from this monthly list, just hit “reply” with

the subject line “REMOVE”, but please don’t leave. We need your help! Right

now, we have about 2,200 people on this list. Our goal is to reach 10,000 by

the next Texas legislative session in January 2003. That’s an ambitious

goal, but we need people on the list so that next session we can put lots of

pressure on the legislature to pass a moratorium. Now, on to the news.

CITY COUNCILS MORATORIUM RESOLUTIONS EFFORT

One of the projects we are developing is an effort to ask the Austin City

Council to pass a resolution calling for a moratorium on executions. People

in other Texas cities are also working on their city councils. Hays and

Rollingwood, Texas have already passed moratorium resolutions. San Antonio

and El Paso came close to passing resolutions. Contact us, if you want help

getting in touch with other moratorium supporters in your city, so you can

work together to get city council resolutions passed.

Many city councils around the country have already passed moratorium

resolutions, including Atlanta; Baltimore; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh;

Oakland; Cincinnati; Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Fayetteville, Winston-Salem,

Greensboro, and Durham, North Carolina; Tucson, Arizona; Lexington and

Charlottesville, Virginia; and Buffalo, NY.

One of the aspects of the city council push is to ask city councils in other

countries that have sister-city relationships with Texas cities to ask their

Texas sister-cities to support moratorium resolutions. To find out the

sister-cities for your Texas city go to:

http://www.sister-cities.org/sci/directory/usa/TX

Austin has a sister city relationship with Koblenz, Germany. Mayor Gus

Garcia of Austin will lead a delegation to Koblenz, leaving June 18 and

returning June 26th. We would like to ask you to contact the members of the

Koblenz City Council and let them know that you would like them to ask the

Austin City Council to pass a moratorium resolution. In the coming months,

as we develop this project, we will let you know how to contact members of

the Austin City Council, but let’s take this one step at a time. First,

let’s get our sister city on our side.

In your emails to Koblenz, you can mention that the United States is now the

only country in the world that continues to execute juvenile offenders.

Every other country has agreed by international treaty to ban executions of

juvenile offenders. Texas is the leading executioner of juvenile offenders

among U.S. states. Of course, feel free to mention other issues as well, such as the fact that 65 percent of all people on death row in Texas are members of ethnic or racial minorities and that only poor people get the death penalty.

The mayor of Koblenz is Dr. Eberhard Schulte-Wissermann. His email address

is: OB@koblenz.de

There are 56 members of the Koblenz city council representing five political

parties. You can contact the leaders of each of the five factions at the

following email addresses:

Heribert Heinrich of the SPD Party (20 members), email:

fraktion@spd-koblenz.de

Michael Horter of the CDU (30 members) email:

m.hoerter@cdufraktion-koblenz.de

Hans-Peter Ackermann of the Greens (3 members), email:

buendnis@abo.rhein-zeitung.de

Ursula Schwerin of the FDP (2 members), email: ursula.schwerin@t-online.de Rolf Jahner of the FBG (1 member), email: jahner+merwald@rz-online.de

You can, of course, write them in English! The SPD and the Greens are the

parties on the left of center. The CDU and FDP are on the right. The FBG’s

place on the spectrum is unclear.

REVIEW OF NAPOLEON BEAZLEY ACTION

Last month we asked you to visit our website and send a free fax to the

Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles asking them to commute Napoleon Beazley’s

death sentence to life in prison. A total of 471 people sent faxes. The

final BPP vote was 10-7. The chair of the board, Gerald Garrett voted in

favor of commutation. We are sure that your faxes played some role in

convincing those 7 members to vote for commutation. We also hand-delivered

7,083 petition signatures from Sweden to the BPP. TMN also ran a 1/4 page ad

two weeks in a row on Napoleon’s case in The Austin Chronicle. About 150

people showed up May 28th at the Governor’s Mansion in Austin to express

their opposition to the execution of Napoleon and to the executions of all

juvenile offenders. Another 70 people or so showed up in Huntsville to

protest. The large number of people who took the time to protest Napoleon’s

execution is a good sign of the growing opposition to executions of juvenile

offenders.

TEXAS BAR ASSOCIATION TO VOTE ON MORATORIUM RESOLUTION

The Texas State Bar Association is poised to vote on a resolution calling

for a moratorium on executions at its annual meeting in Dallas, June 13-15.

So far, only *seven* other state bar associations have passed such

resolutions (Colorado, Connecticut, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, North

Carolina, and Pennsylvania). The Resolution will be considered by the

Resolutions Committee on Thursday, June 13 at 4:00 p.m. If you live in the

area, please attend the Committee meeting to show your support, even if you

are not a lawyer.

Please pass this message on to anyone you know who may be able to help pass

the resolution, especially to your lawyer friends. If you are a lawyer

licensed in Texas and can help in any way, or if you are planning on

attending the meeting in Dallas, please contact:

Nancy Trease

nat4@georgetown.edu

512-326-3382

Nancy will fill you in on how to get involved. The Texas Bar Association

resolution effort website is http://www.moratorium.info

TEXAS DEFENDER SERVICE NEEDS VOLUNTEERS

Texas Defender Service has asked us to locate people who can help them

conduct some research for an upcoming report. They are looking for people in

Bowie, Maverick, Dallas, Randall, Harris, Smith, Lubbock and Potter counties

to help review some court files for their study on racism. If you can do

some work on this over the summer, please contact Andrea Keilen at

akeilen@texasdefender.org.

3RD ANNUAL MARCH FOR A MORATORIUM SET FOR OCTOBER 12, 2002. SAVE THE DATE!

October 12, 2002 has been chosen for the 3rd Annual March for a Moratorium.

You don’t want to miss this high-energy annual event organized each year by

a coalition of many groups under the umbrella of the Moratorium March

Network. Among other speakers last year, Rena and Ireland Beazley spoke

eloquently on the steps of the Texas capitol building about the plight of

their son Napoleon. This year we again expect a good roster of compelling

speakers and a record turnout.

The first organizing meeting will be Saturday, June 29, at 2pm at 1311 E. 13th St. in Austin at the home of Lily Hughes. Contact Lily Hughes with CEDP at 494-0667 or austincampaign@hotmail.com to find out how to get involved in organizing the march. A lot of hard work goes into making the march a successful event. Many groups and individuals have been involved over the years, but as always, the more the better, so please get involved.

ONLINE PETITION AND UPDATED TMN WEBSITE http://www.texasmoratorium.org

TMN has a new website administrator! Richard Reveley began working with us a

couple of months ago. He is making our site a must-visit for news about the

push for a moratorium in Texas. He recently added an online petition. We will collect names and present them to the Texas Legislature next year. Add

your name to the list of people calling for a moratorium on executions in

Texas at http://www.texasmoratorium.org/petition.php. You can also download

a petition to collect signatures from your friends and neighbors. And you

can answer our online survey about which issue you find most concerning

about the death penalty in Texas. Thank you, Richard!!!!

And thank YOU for reading to the end of this newsletter. Sorry for the long

email, but there is a lot going on in the push for a moratorium in Texas.

Remember, you can always contact us and find out more about how to get

involved.

Best Regards,

TMN

Statement by Attorney Walter Long

Walter Long kindly gave us permission to publish this statement he made recently regarding the recent Supreme Court ruling on execution of people with mental retardation.

Statement by Attorney Walter Long Regarding Impact of U.S. Supreme Court’s Mental Retardation ruling

I have read Atkins v. Virginia, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court today, and have the following comments regarding its application to juvenile offenders:

1) I think Atkins is a very positive opinion for juvenile offender advocates. The opinion is written by Justice Stevens, joined by O’Connor, Kennedy, Breyer, Ginsberg, and Souter. Rehnquist and Scalia write separate dissents, joined by each other and Thomas (no surprise there, except one wonders why they could not have consolidated their opinions in one dissent).

2) The Court in Penry rejected the petitioner’s arguments that there was an “emerging national consensus” against the death penalty for persons with mental retardation. Justices have generally argued against finding a consensus where there is only an indication that change is in the air. (Justice Scalia observes in Atkins dissent that five of the statutes barring the death penalty for persons with mental retardation were enacted within the past year!) Here, however, the Court has embraced an “emerging” consensus, when combined with a variety of other factors, as sufficient to hold that the penalty as applied to a particular class is “unusual.”

In order to grant relief in Atkins, the Court had to either make a finding like this that an emerging consensus was sufficient, or it had to make a specific finding that the non-death penalty states should be included in the calculus. It went with the former, perhaps so as to avoid Stanford (which held that the non-death penalty states were irrelevant). This surprises me, somewhat, because I think Justice Scalia’s point is reasonable that a consensus may be more accurately shown by longer-standing statutes. Under his view, the evidence for juveniles would be stronger than for persons with mental retardation, because the juvenile statutes setting the eligibility age at 18 have existed for so much longer, for the most part.

The Atkins opinion accepting a trend (with no counter-trend) as relevant to a finding of consensus can only help, however, with regard to juvenile offenders, given the level of legislative action on their behalf in a large number of states, when coupled with the long-standing statutes already protecting juveniles in so many states.

3) While being careful not to refer to such data as “dispositive,” the Atkins majority has rehabilitated the opinions of “organizations with germane expertise,” religious communities (!), the “world community,” and polling data as relevant evidence of consensus. (FN 21 of the majority opinion) This may be the most remarkable aspect of the Atkins opinion. The Court majority in Stanford v. Kentucky (the juvenile offender case in 1989) rejected all of these as irrelevant. Justice Rehnquist’s dissent shows that the authority of Stanford is now in doubt on this point. He observes, “Stanford’s reasoning [rejecting international opinion] makes perfectly good sense, and the Court offers no basis to question it.” The Atkins Court has questioned it. I think it is obvious that Stanford has been overruled and is no longer good authority in regard to its holdings on the relevance of these matters.

This is extremely important for juvenile offenders, because I believe that in December the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights most likely is going to issue a report finding that the United States is violating a jus cogens norm prohibiting the death penalty for persons who were under 18 at the time of their offense. A jus cogens norm is the highest norm of international law, representing a principle that cannot be breached by any nation. Other such norms are the prohibitions on genocide, torture, and systematic racial discrimination. Federal courts have wrestled with the relationship between jus cogens norms and our own constitution, suggesting that they are at least on an equal par as authority.

4) The Court distinguishes the mental retardation class from juveniles in FN18 of the majority opinion. The text of the opinion at that point reads: “It is not so much the number of these States [barring the death penalty for persons with mental retardation] that is significant, but the consistency of the direction of change. Given the well-known fact that anticrime legislation is far more popular than legislation providing protections for persons guilty of violent crime, the large number of States prohibiting the execution of mentally retarded persons (and the complete absence of States passing legislation reinstating the power to conduct such executions) provides powerful evidence that today our society views mentally retarded offenders as categorically less culpable than the average criminal.”

The footnote reads: “A comparison to Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989), in which we held that there was no national consensus prohibiting the execution of juvenile offenders over age 15, is telling. Although we decided Stanford on the same day as Penry, apparently only two state legislatures have raised the threshold age for imposition of the death penalty.” (referring to Montana and Indiana)

The opinion is a bit convoluted here. The Court says that it is “not the number of States” that matters, while at the same time asserting that “the large number of States . . . provides powerful evidence” of societal consensus.

The FN 18 comparison is illegitimate. If the Court is trying to say that it does not see the same legislative energy applied to the juvenile issue, it shouldn’t, because roughly the same states that SINCE 1989 bar the death penalty for juvenile offenders are the states that have been CATCHING UP in regard to protection for persons with mental retardation. Of the 18 states now barring the death penalty for persons with mental retardation by statute, only 5 do not also have statutes barring it for persons under 18 at the time of the offense. Legislative energy is not going to exist where protection is already in place. (Meanwhile, in the 2002 legislative season, there were 6-7 states considering raising the eligibility age to 18.) The Court’s finding in the text that 18 states barring the death penalty for persons with mental retardation is significant and large applies to the 16 states that bar the penalty for juvenile offenders (laying to one side the states with no death penalty at all). This represents just as much an established norm, with no state legislation backtracking on the juvenile issue since Stanford (as the Court notes with regard to the mental retardation issue).

5) The Court’s points about the consensus reflecting a widespread judgment about the relative culpability of mentally retarded offenders, and the relationship between mental retardation and deterrence and retribution, are directly applicable to juvenile offenders.

Almost everything the Court says to describe mentally retarded persons fits what has been observed and proven about juvenile offenders: “Mentally retarded persons frequently know the difference between right and wrong and are competent to stand trial. Because of their impairments, however, by definition they have diminished capacities to understand and process information, to communicate, to abstract from mistakes and learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, to control impulses, and to understand the reactions of others. There is no evidence that they are more likely to engage in criminal conduct than others, but THERE IS ABUNDANT EVIDENCE THAT THEY OFTEN ACT ON IMPULSE RATHER THAN PURSUANT TO A PREMEDITATED PLAN, AND THAT IN GROUP SETTINGS THEY ARE FOLLOWERS RATHER THAN LEADERS.” Juveniles as a class have the same lack of capacity, although it is not caused by “impairment” so much as lack of physical maturity. Modern brain scan technology has shown that the juvenile brain simply is not fully developed. The prefrontal cortex, which does not finish developing until the early 20s, governs logical reasoning, the ability to foresee consequences of actions, the ability to understand reactions of others, and impulsivity. Juveniles as a class, thus, also are uniquely likely to act on impulse and under the influence of peer pressure.

The Court’s conclusion that the mental deficiencies of persons with mental retardation diminish their personal culpability applies with equal force to juvenile offenders. Therefore, the penological purposes of retribution and deterrence are also ill-served by the application of the death penalty to juveniles as a class. In a future opinion on juveniles, the Court could simply import the language it uses to describe persons with mental retardation: “[T]he lesser culpability of the mentally retarded offender surely does not merit [the death penalty as a] form of retribution.” “The theory of deterrence in capital sentencing is predicated upon the notion that the increased severity of the punishment will inhibit criminal actors from carrying out murderous conduct. Yet it is the same cognitive and behavioral impairments that make these defendants less morally culpable — for example, the diminished ability to understand and process information, to learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, or to control impulses — that also make it less likely that they can process the information of the possibility of execution as a penalty and, as a result, control their conduct based upon that information.”

6) Juveniles are also troubled by the last factor mentioned by the Atkins majority: a lesser ability to make a persuasive showing of mitigation in the face of prosecutorial evidence of one or more aggravating factors. I think this was particularly a problem in Napoleon Beazley’s case. As bright as Napoleon was, I think he was limited by his developmental level from being able to have sufficient insight into his crime to adequately defend himself at trial. His mature reflection on death row enabled him to have some later understanding that helped us all to see the pressures on him as a juvenile that led to the offense (especially his dilemmas arising from being a black youth with white friends in that particular community). This information should have been presented to Napoleon’s trial jury at the punishment phase. Bracketing off for a moment the race bias problem with Napoleon’s jury, it is information that might have made a difference in the punishment verdict.

The Atkins Court refers to the trial “demeanor” of persons with mental retardation as creating an “unwarranted impression of lack of remorse for their crimes.” A juvenile, by virtue of the fact that he is a juvenile unable to comprehend what is going on around him in the trial process, will characteristically have this same demeanor, misleading the jury about remorse. I would imagine that this was a particular problem in Napoleon’s case, where the prosecution set about to create what I believe was a false impression: that he premeditated the murder of John Luttig. I believe that the crime was intentional, but occurred on impulse. Everything suggests that, in the aftermath, Napoleon had little to no understanding of it. A number of his post-crime comments, as related by the Coleman brothers, were the observations of an uncomprehending child used by the prosecution to make him seem unremorseful.

Overall, Atkins is very positive for juvenile offenders. Because of the similarities in regard to the number of states barring the death penalty for each class and the obvious parallels, if not identities, on all of the relevant substantive issues, the Court should take the case of a juvenile offender in the near future.

Walter Long

Death penalty: Supreme Court is right to refine the process 
Dallas Morning News 
06/26/2002 

On Sunday’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, Sen. John Kerry suggested that America is “beginning to question how we have applied the death penalty.” The prospective 2004 Democratic presidential nominee said that, despite public support for capital punishment, he opposes it. Citing advances in the application of DNA evidence, Sen. Kerry said he favors a moratorium on the death penalty until some troubling questions are answered – including why minorities account for three-fourths of inmates on death row. 


The question posed to the Supreme Court this week was something altogether different, namely whether judges can make the formal determination about whether there exist, in the case of convicted murderers, “aggravating factors” that warrant the death penalty. No, they cannot, said the high court in a 7-2 decision. That is a finding that is best left to a jury. 

That is already the standard procedure here in Texas, where only the 12 peers can impose a death sentence. Not so in nine other states, where the court’s decision could result in new sentences for hundreds of death row inmates. 

The ruling in Ring vs. Arizona came less than a week after the court, in another hugely important decision, struck down executions for the mentally retarded. Taken together, the two decisions seem to signal that the high court – while stopping short of prohibiting the states from carrying out capital punishment altogether – is growing uncomfortable with the manner in which the death penalty is imposed and administered. Perhaps what the court is saying is that the states, and the American people, should be approaching the issue of capital punishment much more thoughtfully than has been the case in recent years and that it is willing to lead the way by setting a more deliberative tone. 

If that is the case, then Americans should sit up and take notice. Even when it comes down from where it should – from juries – the decision to enlist the state in the taking of a human life is serious business. Of course, there are instances where the offenses are so egregious and the offenders so lacking in redeemable human qualities (such as Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh) that the death penalty is highly appropriate. But even in those extreme cases, there always should be the requisite amount of collective analysis, scrutiny and soul-searching about how far we should go in pursuit of justice. 

Murderers may have trivialized the sanctity of human life in committing their heinous acts, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of society has to follow suit.

Ireland and Rena Beazley on Saturday buried their oldest son, executed for committing a fatal carjacking.

Nearly 8 years to the day after he graduated with honors from Grapeland High School, Napoleon Beazley was executed Tuesday for the 1994 slaying of Tyler civic leader John Luttig, sparking worldwide criticism of the Texas death penalty.

More than 700 people showed up at Mt. Zion Baptist Church for Beazley’s
funeral, but few tears were shed during the upbeat, 2-hour service.

With hands interlocked and eyes squeezed shut, the crowd belted out hymns
and prayed for Beazley and his family. Even the sticky heat in the tidy,
clapboard church didn’t sap the enthusiasm.

After the service, the family cheerfully greeted mourners. The mood was
generally upbeat this weekend at the Beazleys’ quaint brick house, though
there were some tears.

As darkness descended on this East Texas town Friday night, the husband
and wife of more than 30 years playfully teased each other and dozens of
guests who came to lift their spirits with hugs, and sometimes, flowers.

“At least he’s free,” said Napoleon Beazley’s mother, Rena Beazley. “8
years is a long time to battle. It was just too much. It was tearing us
up inside. Now, we’re going to celebrate his life.”

In the days before Beazley’s execution — which sparked widespread
criticism of Texas’ capital punishment system — his family said they
attempted to suppress their grief so they wouldn’t worry their condemned
son.

“He was carrying a lot of responsibility,” Rena Beazley said. “He knew he
disappointed us in April 1994 and he’s been trying to make up for it.

“We got 2 hours with him on (last) Saturday and it was just a regular
conversation. He was not afraid of dying. He had prepared himself to
die.”

During their final visit, the Beazleys said they were finally able to
have a “contact” visit with their son. They hadn’t touched their son in
more than 7 years.

Defense attorneys argued that Beazley’s execution violated international
law because of his age and said race played a role. Beazley is black, his
victim was white and he was convicted of capital murder by an all-white
jury.

A former high school class president and star athlete, Beazley had been
dealing drugs for several years but had not been caught. His parents said
they had him tested for drugs twice, but the results came back negative.

On the night of April 19, 1994, Beazley was carrying a .45-caliber pistol
and had stowed a shotgun in his mother’s car before he and two companions
went to Tyler, about 60 miles north of Grapeland, to steal a car.

After shooting Luttig, the 63-year-old father of U.S. Circuit Court Judge
J. Michael Luttig, evidence showed Beazley stepped through a pool of
Luttig’s blood to go through his pockets. After retrieving keys to the
Luttigs’ 10-year-old Mercedes, Beazley hit a wall while driving away and
was forced to abandon the vehicle.

His 2 companions, Cedrick and Donald “Fig” Coleman, received life in
prison.

Beazley’s father, wiping tears away, said Friday that he’s coming to
grips with the execution.

“Our hearts are still grieving,” he said.

Beazley’s mother said the execution has, in some ways, been a relief.

“We put our lives on hold for eight years,” said Rena Beazley, who has
been hospitalized twice for depression in recent years. “I never thought
I’d ever go to a prison, let alone death row. Every weekend we went down
to death row to see Napoleon.”

Their youngest son Ireland Jamaal, who graduated from Grapeland High
School with honors, is soon to go away to junior college.

With time to mull over their eldest son’s death, the Beazleys say they
plan to join the fight to against Texas’ death penalty.

That next step, they say, will be proof that Napoleon Beazley didn’t die
in vain.

“It was a huge eye-opener for us,” Rena Beazley said. “We were the
perfect family. We did everything by the book. If it can happen to us, it
can happen to anyone.

“Napoleon was a good boy. I’m so proud of him. He touched a lot of
people. His life will speak for itself.”

(source: Associated Press)