Beazley should have been granted reprieve By Walter Long

SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN 

Thursday, June 6, 2002 

Napoleon Beazley was executed May 28 for the killing of a Tyler businessman in 1994. Beazley was 17 when he committed the crime. This column was written by Walter Long, who, along with David Botsford, represented Beazley during his trial. 

In 1993, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun remarked, “I have voiced disappointment with this Court’s obvious eagerness to do away with any restriction on the State’s power to execute whomever and however they please. I have also expressed doubts about whether, in the absence of such restrictions, capital punishment remains constitutional at all. Of one thing, however, I am certain. Just as an execution without adequate safeguards is unacceptable, so too is an execution when the condemned prisoner can prove that he is innocent. The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder.” 

Our client Napoleon Beazley was not innocent of capital murder. Yet, in my opinion, his execution May 28 may have been perilously close to simple murder. The “safeguards” in Napoleon’s case were completely unacceptable. 

As in the cases of scores of other indigent Texas capital inmates, the state denied Napoleon any meaningful appellate review of his death sentence by failing to provide him with statutorily guaranteed competent representation at the only time in which he could reasonably hope for an evidentiary hearing, an opportunity to develop non-record facts, and a credibility determination made by a judge hearing testimony on both sides of the issues. 

What is more frightening and unique about Napoleon’s case is that, as a child offender, he may have been protected from execution by the federal constitution, as well as by international law. This month, the U.S. Supreme Court should issue a decision in Atkins v. Virginia that may undermine the legal rule in Stanford v. Kentucky, the 1989 Supreme Court case which allows the death penalty to be given to 17-year-old offenders like Napoleon. Application of the new Atkins rule to the facts regarding juvenile offenders may exempt them from execution. 

My reprieve petition to Gov. Rick Perry reiterated what I had been asking every adjudicator to do for Napoleon since February: grant a reprieve until Atkins is released. I explained that it was nearly impossible for the United States Supreme Court to grant review in Napoleon’s case because only six justices were participating, and no other juvenile offender (who could have had nine justices) had a case before the court to which Napoleon’s could be attached. In that regard, I noted, “By chance circumstances, Christopher Simmons, a child offender in Missouri, had his execution date changed from May 1 to June 5 by the Missouri Supreme Court, which currently has the Eighth Amendment claim before it. He is the next child offender who will have all nine justices . . . . The answers to all of these questions may be given in Simmons’ case, but only days too late to help Napoleon if a reprieve is not granted.” 

I was on my way to Huntsville around 2:30 p.m. on May 28 when I received a call from Simmons’ attorney on my cell phone, notifying me that minutes earlier the Missouri Supreme Court had issued an indefinite stay for Simmons. The order read, “Execution stayed pending decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in Atkins v. Commonwealth of Virginia.” 

I headed back to Austin, where I met with the governor’s deputy counsel, making sure that the governor understood why I believed the Supreme Court had not acted in our case and that we were asking him to do exactly what Missouri did. David Botsford and I filed a motion for stay of execution at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which has the jurisdiction to stay an execution for any reason. 

The court voted 5-3 to deny a stay. Judges Tom Price, Cheryl Johnson, and Lawrence Meyers noted that they would have granted a stay. Shortly after getting word of the court’s decision, I received a call from the governor’s office: The governor had denied the reprieve. 

Our client was not innocent of the offense, but may have been ineligible for the death penalty under the federal Constitution. By denying a 30-day reprieve, the governor displayed a disregard for fairness, especially in light of his awareness of Missouri’s just and equitable stay on the same day. Perry understood the stakes when he made his decision. Waiting another month to execute Napoleon would not have hurt the system. On the other hand, if Atkins leads to protection for juvenile offenders, Perry’s decision will expose the system’s brutal arbitrariness. 

http://www.austin360.com/statesman/editions/today/editorial_7.html

The complete text of Beazley’s written final statement follows:

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 way victorious.

June 3, 2002

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that Texas must either set Calvin Burdine free or retry him. The state of Texas had argued that Burdine received a fair trial because he could not prove that his lawyer slept through key parts of his trial. The state did not argue that his lawyer had stayed awake for the entire trial, only that no one could say whether the sleeping occurred during key parts. “A person facing the death penalty deserves to be defended by a philadelphia multi vehicle car accident lawyer who is wide awake. Being defended by a court-appointed sleeping lawyer is like being defended by a card-board cutout of Perry Mason or Ally McBeal. It might look like a lawyer, but it doesn’t act like one”, said Scott Cobb of Texas Moratorium Network. You can contact experts in Kingston practicing bankruptcy lawyers.

“Many people sit on death row in Texas not because they are the worst of the worst of all murderers, but because their lawyers were among the worst of the worst of all lawyers, especially at the trial level. However, you can find one of the best lawyers for your cases – look at here now Last week the state executed Napoleon Beazley despite admissions from his state Habeas counsel, Mr. Robin Norris, that he had performed deficiently when he represented Napoleon. Texas needs to enact a moratorium on executions in the next session of the Legislature so that reforms can be enacted to rid the system of incompetence once and for all. Let’s judge and sentence defendants because of their own actions and not because of the incompetent actions of their lawyers”, said Cobb. You can find this attorney office to help you.

By JIM VERTUNO, Associated Press Writer


AUSTIN – Napoleon Beazley’s parents and more than two dozen central Texas 
clergy members pleaded Thursday for Gov. Rick Perry and state officials to 
commute Beazley’s death sentence to life in prison because he was 17 when he 
shot a Tyler businessman in 1994.

“I think he deserves to live,” said Beazley’s mother, Rena Beazley. Her son 
is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday. Beazley has acknowledged 
his guilt and has apologized to the victim’s family.

“It’s not a question of whether he was there or not,” Rena Beazley said. 
“It’s the question of whether he is a menace to society and he isn’t.”

Under Texas law, Perry can grant a 30-day reprieve from execution, but can’t 
order a commutation without the recommendation of the state Board of Pardons 
and Paroles. The board voted 10-6 last year against commuting the sentence.

The board can review the case again. Perry spokesman Gene Acuna said the 
governor would not comment.

Beazley’s case has received international scrutiny from critics of Texas’ 
capital punishment system.

Defense attorneys argue the execution would violate international law and 
have questioned whether race played a role. Beazley is black and his victim 
was white. He was convicted by an all-white jury.

Prosecutors say that Texas law, in which a 17-year-old is considered an 
adult, takes precedence over an international treaty.

The case also includes some interesting twists.

The victim, 63-year-old John Luttig, was the father of a federal judge. The 
East Texas judge who sentenced Beazley to die wrote to Perry last year 
urging Beazley’s life be spared.

A group of 18 Democratic legislators and Houston County District Attorney 
Cindy Garner, who calls herself a strong advocate of the death penalty, also 
have written Perry urging commutation.

Beazley avoided the death chamber in August when the Texas Court of Criminal 
Appeals issued a stay of execution just hours before he was to die. The stay 
was lifted last month and the new execution date was set.

Beazley, now 25, was a high school class president and star athlete at the 
time of the 1994 murder of John Luttig, 63. The victim’s son, J. Michael 
Luttig, is a judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.

The clergy members attending the new conference at the state Capitol 
presented a letter supporting Beazley’s case from retired Anglican 
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa to Gerald Garrett, chairman of the 
parole board.

“I find it incomprehensible that the death penalty should be imposed upon a 
person who was a child when the offense occurred,” Tutu wrote.

Beazley’s attorney, Walter Long, said he has filed a motion with U.S. 
Supreme Court seeking to stop the execution.

Having worked several death row cases in Texas, including infamous pick-axe 
killer Karla Faye Tucker who was executed in 1998, Long sounded pessimistic 
about Beazley’s chances for a commutation in the nation’s leading death 
penalty state.

“In Texas, it’s like holding out against hope,” he said.

In Similar Cases, One Inmate Is Executed, One Wins Stay

By SARA RIMER

New York Times
HOUSTON – Napoleon Beazley, 26, of Texas, and Christopher Simmons, 26, of Missouri, both committed murder when they were 17. They filed identical claims before federal and state courts, arguing that executing an inmate who was younger than 18 at the time of his crime violates the Eighth Amendment’s provision against cruel and unusual punishment.

Today the Missouri Supreme Court granted Mr. Simmons, who was to be executed next week, a stay pending the outcome of a related United States Supreme Court case that will be decided by the end of June. Mr. Beazley was put to death by lethal injection in Huntsville shortly after 6 p.m. after the United States Supreme Court refused to hear his petition and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied his motion for a stay, and after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 10 to 7 against clemency. Gov. Rick Perry accepted the board’s recommendation and denied Mr. Beazley’s request for a 30-day reprieve. “To delay his punishment would be to delay justice,” the governor said in a statement shortly before Mr. Beazley’s execution.

Mr. Beazley shot John Luttig, 63, the father of a federal judge, in a botched carjacking in 1994. Mr. Luttig’s daughter, Suzanne Luttig, watched the execution in Huntsville but did not speak to reporters.

Mr. Beazley, who had been his high school senior class president and a football star in Grapeland, Tex., apologized today in a handwritten statement for a murder that was “not just heinous, it was senseless.”

Paddy Burwell, one of the board members who voted to commute Mr. Beazley’s punishment to a life sentence, was working on his ranch, between San Antonio and Victoria, when he learned that Mr. Beazley had been executed. “I’m really apprehensive that this is a day we’re going to be sorry about for a long time,” Mr. Burwell said in a telephone interview. “I just feel like something really wrong has happened.”

The pending United States Supreme Court case is expected to decide whether there is now a “national consensus” that executing the mentally retarded constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Lawyers for both Mr. Beazley and Mr. Simmons, as well as other legal experts, said that if the court outlaws the execution of the mentally retarded, the ruling could also undermine the opinion that allows the execution of inmates who committed capital murder when they were younger than 18.

The decisions made today by courts and officials in Missouri and Texas show “how incredibly arbitrary the death penalty system is,” said Elisabeth Semel, the director of the death penalty clinic of the Boalt School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley.

“Missouri looks to the Supreme Court and is apparently concerned that a decision is imminent that may have implications for the execution of Christopher Simmons,” Ms. Semel said. “So it says stop. But Texas goes ahead.”

The Texas pardons board’s vote of 10 to 7 against clemency — in the form of a commutation to a life sentence — was a slim margin in a state where the overwhelming majority of the board votes since 1996 have been unanimous in favor of execution.

Brendolyn Rogers-Johnson, 52, is a board member who also voted for clemency. “I weighed all the information and agonized over it and dreamt about it and thought about it,” she said in a telephone interview.

Ms. Rogers-Johnson, a former high school English teacher, said that a number of factors had influenced her decision, including Mr. Beazley’s age at the time of the crime and the fact that he had no prior criminal record. “There was a strong possibility that he would not be a danger,” she said.

To win a death sentence for Mr. Beazley, prosecutors had to prove his “future dangerousness,” a difficult task considering his age and his lack of a record, but one helped greatly by the testimony from the two brothers who were his co-defendants. One of them, Donald Coleman, testified that before the killing Mr. Beazley had talked about “wanting to hurt someone” and that he said he wanted “to see what it feels like to see somebody die.” Mr. Coleman later recanted his testimony, saying it was part of a deal with prosecutors to avoid the death penalty, but prosecutors deny that.

The Smith County district attorney, Jack Skeen, Jr., who prosecuted the Beazley case, and Ed Marty, an assistant district attorney who handled the appeals, were present at the execution today. But both refused to talk to reporters.
http://www.nytimes.com

(Associated Press)

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