Saturday, August 11, 2001

Crime and punishment

Beazley was 17 when he killed a man in cold blood. Should he be executed?

AUSTIN - Texas is again in the spotlight because of a death penalty case.
   This one involves Napoleon Beazley, a Grapeland resident sentenced to death for the 1994 killing of 63-year-old John Luttig in Tyler. Death penalty opponents from as far away as Norway are urging Texas to spare Beazley's life. Beazley's case has sparked controversy because he was 17 years old when he committed the crime. He also was a star athlete in high school and had no prior criminal record.
   Even so, something went wrong on April 19, 1994, causing Beazley to commit a horrendous crime. According to court records, three men confronted Luttig in the driveway of his home. Luttig had just pulled into his garage after returning from Dallas with his wife, Bobbie. The men were attempting to carjack Luttig's Mercedes Benz.
   Beazley shot Luttig in the head twice with a .45 caliber pistol during a struggle in the driveway. Two co-defendants testified that Beazley pulled the trigger. His palm print was found on Luttig's wrecked Mercedes and police discovered his bloody footprint in Luttig's driveway.
   A jury convicted Beazley of capital murder in 1995 and sentenced him to death. Now, at the age of 25, the former senior class president at Grapeland High School is facing an Aug. 15 execution date.
   Beazley's case has fueled a growing national and international debate over the execution of 17-year-olds convicted of capital offenses. During the legislative session, the Texas House passed a bill to prohibit the execution of anyone who committed an offense when he or she was younger than 18. The bill died in a Senate committee.
   Beazley also has the support of his local district attorney, who was not the prosecutor in this case because the crime occurred in another jurisdiction. Cindy Garner, Houston County district attorney, urged the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles in a letter to commute Beazley's sentence to life in prison.
   ''Bottom line, Mr. Beazley is a young, black man from a small community who could have done great things in his life because he was charming, smart, respectful and a genuinely good kid," Garner wrote. ''He was a fool to be influenced by his co-defendants and a fool to act like a common street thug. He made a terrible mistake this one time . . .''
   But that ''terrible mistake'' cost the life of John Luttig and caused tremendous grief for his family and friends. Expressing sorrow for killing someone after the fact does little to ease the family's pain. And it's difficult for many people to view murder as a mistake. Misspelling a word is a mistake. Murdering someone is a conscientious decision to take another person's life.
   No one relishes seeing Beazley put to death. But no one made Beazley kill Luttig, either. He decided to kill in 1994 and Texas law states that he must pay for that crime.
   Texas is among 23 states that allow death penalty sentences for 17-year-olds convicted of capital offenses. So far no court has agreed to delay the execution or reduce the sentence. Beazley has petitioned the parole board with two requests: to commute his sentence to a lesser penalty and to give him a 60-day reprieve from his execution date.
   The board will make a recommendation to Gov. Rick Perry before Wednesday. Unless the board commutes Beazley's sentence to life in prison, Perry's only power is to delay Beazley's death for 30 days.
   In this and every death penalty case, Perry and the board should ask the following questions: Is the person guilty? Did he or she receive a fair trial? Did he or she have access to all the appeals afforded by the law?
   If the answer is yes to the questions, it would be difficult to halt this or any other execution under current Texas law.
   Death penalty opponents are right when they say executing Beazley won't bring Luttig back. But it will carry out the law in Texas. If opponents want to change the system, they should focus their efforts at the Legislature, which makes the laws in Texas.
   Ty Meighan is chief of the Scripps Howard Austin Bureau. He can be reached by e-mail at meighan@scripps.com.
  
  

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Ty Meighan is chief of the Scripps Howard Austin Bureau. You can reach him by phone at (512) 334-6640 or by email at meighant@scripps.com.

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