Texas Executes Young Killer of U.S. Judge’s Father

Napoleon Beazley, convicted of killing the father of a federal judge when he was 17, was executed Tuesday, the 11th inmate to be put to death in the state since 1976 for a crime committed while a juvenile.

Beazley was executed by injection after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Gov. Rick Perry and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to commute his death sentence to life in prison.

Strapped to a gurney in the death chamber, Beazley, 25, turned his head to look at the daughter of the man he killed. When asked if he had any final words, Beazley paused, looked once again at the daughter and shook his head no.

In a written statement released after his execution, Beazley wrote: “The act I committed to put me here was not just heinous, it was senseless.... I’m sorry it was something in me that caused all of this to happen to begin with.”

Beazley’s case attracted international attention because his age stirred debate over capital punishment for youths and because the murder victim, a prominent East Texas oilman, was the father of a federal judge with professional ties to U.S. Supreme Court justices.

Beazley was a star athlete, class president and small-time drug dealer in rural Grapeland, Texas, when he and two friends hatched a plan to steal a car in 1994. While scouting the roads in the East Texas city of Tyler, they spotted John Luttig and his wife, Bobbie, who were driving home from Bible study in a Mercedes-Benz.

The trio confronted the Luttigs after they stepped out of their car, said prosecutors. John Luttig, 63, was killed by two gunshots to the head. His wife survived the bungled carjacking by falling to the ground and feigning death.

An anonymous tip led police to Beazley and his accomplices, Cedric and Donald Coleman. The Coleman brothers received life sentences in return for testifying against Beazley.

Beazley was sentenced to death in 1995 by a jury unswayed by lawyers arguing that his age was a mitigating factor.

Almost immediately, Beazley became a rallying point for groups opposed to capital punishment for juveniles. The European Union, Amnesty International and the American Bar Assn. worked to save Beazley’s life, as did Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu and the Texas judge who presided over Beazley’s murder trial.

“I am astounded that Texas and a few other states in the United States take children from their families and execute them,” wrote Tutu in a letter opposing Beazley’s execution.

Smith County Dist. Atty. Jack Skeen Jr. stood firm in his resolve to see the jury’s sentence carried out. “This has been almost eight years to the day since the capital murder of John Luttig in front of his wife, and it is time for justice to be carried out in this case,” Skeen said recently.

Beazley faced execution last year after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a federal reprieve. In an unusual move, three justices--Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter and Clarence Thomas--recused themselves from the case, citing professional ties with the victim’s son, federal Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig of Richmond, Va.

Four hours before his scheduled Aug. 15 execution, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a rare stay to study the case. That stay was vacated in April.

Tuesday, protesters milled outside the red-brick building that houses the Texas death chamber, holding placards and chanting.

As the hands on the prison watchtower moved slowly toward the 6 p.m. execution, Brenda Richard, a friend of Beazley’s, sat on a curb and wept.

“I feel sympathy for the Luttig famly,” Richard said, “but it’s not going to bring them peace now that Napoleon is gone.”

Texas is one of 22 states that allow the death penalty for capital crimes committed by those younger than 18.

Beazley is the 14th death row inmate executed this year in Texas. Five executions are scheduled in June.