New York Times Execution Approaches in a Most Rare Murder Case By Jim Yardley Tyler, Texas -- J. Michael Luttig, a member of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Virginia, is considered one of the
most influential and conservative federal judges in the nation, a
jurist thought to be on President Bush's short list for the Supreme
Court. He also has the awful distinction of being one of the few
federal judges in history to have a father who was murdered. On April 19, 1994, a teenager named Napoleon Beazley and two
friends ambushed Mr. Luttig's father on his driveway in this East
Texas city, and Mr. Beazley shot him twice in the head. It was
supposed to be a carjacking, and whether Mr. Beazley fired out of
rage or in a fit of panic, John Luttig was killed as his terrified
wife crawled under the car to survive. With Mr. Beazley now scheduled to be executed on Aug. 15, his
case is attracting international pleas for clemency because he was
only 17 at the time of the slaying and because his co-defendants
have since recanted parts of their testimony. His supporters also
question whether prosecutors sought the death penalty simply to
placate Judge Luttig, who moved his office to Tyler for the trial
and apparently consulted with prosecutors on jury selection. The district attorney in Mr. Beazley's home county has taken the
unusual step of asking the state to spare him, arguing that death is
too severe considering his background and the fact that he had no
prior record. "The question is the appropriateness of the death penalty in this
case," said Walter Long, the lawyer handling Mr. Beazley's death row
appeal. Here in conservative East Texas, the brutal killing is regarded
as senseless waste of not just one life but two, involving two
families that are widely respected in their communities. Mr. Luttig
lived here in Tyler, where he was a civic leader and an elder in his
church. Mr. Beazley lived in Grapeland, a tiny town about 60 miles away,
where his father, Ireland, was the first black city council member
and where he himself was president of his senior class. "I'm sure he was portrayed to be the master killer, but that is
not the Napoleon I knew," said Casey Vickers, who grew up with Mr.
Beazley and considered him his best friend, a uncommon relationship
in a small Texas town, given that Mr. Vickers is white and Mr.
Beazley is black. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't
think about that. Why did it have to go down like that?" From death row, where he has lived for the past six years, Mr.
Beazley, now 25, still struggles with the same question. He does not
say he is innocent, but he will not explain exactly what happened
that night. He admits that no one, himself included, ever expected
his life to turn out this way. He was runner-up as Grapeland High
School's most popular student and a star football player. "I can give you a list of reasons why I was easily influenced,
peer pressure," he said in a recent interview. "But other kids go
through that same stuff, and they don't commit capital murder. It
would come off as justification, and there is no justification for
what happened." The image of Mr. Beazley presented by Smith County prosecutors at
his 1995 murder trial was of a ruthless killer and crack cocaine
dealer, a portrayal that stunned many people in Grapeland who knew
him as a friendly kid and physical fitness nut. From prison, Mr.
Beazley acknowledged that he sold small amounts of crack but said he
never used it. And he said he owned a gun. He said that as a light-skinned black
teenager with lots of white friends he felt that stepping into the
drug world helped him fit in with some black teenagers in town. "When I started selling crack, it was like, `I'm cool, I can fit
in,' " he said "I didn't want to be shunned by the black community,
I guess you could say. That's a sad thing to say." His co-defendants were Cedrick and Donald Coleman, two brothers
from Grapeland, and Mr. Beazley said the idea of finding a car to
"jack" originated with a dare from Cedrick. They drove to Tyler,
spent a few hours searching for a car, then followed Mr. Luttig and
his wife as they returned home in their Mercedes-Benz from a
divinity class. The physical evidence at the trial, including a footprint found
in a pool of Mr. Luttig's blood, pointed to Mr. Beazley as the
gunman. But in order to win a death sentence, prosecutors needed to
prove his "future dangerousness," a difficult task considering his
age and his lack of a record, but one helped greatly by testimony
from the Coleman brothers. Donald Coleman testified that before the
killing Mr. Beazley had talked about "wanting to hurt someone" and
that he also said he wanted "to see what if feels like to see
somebody die." In recent affidavits, both brothers said they lied about Mr.
Beazley's comments as part of a deal with prosecutors to avoid the
death penalty, but prosecutors deny that. Mr. Long, the appellate
lawyer, said the recanted testimony was critical because it was used
during the sentencing phase of the trial by prosecution psychiatric
experts as proof that Mr. Beazley was dangerous. Throughout the trial, the victim's son, a man who legal analysts
say is one of President Bush's top candidates for the Supreme Court,
was a regular presence. He relocated his office, including two clerks, from Virginia to
Tyler for the proceedings. Prosecutors consulted with Judge Luttig
regularly and once sought a recess so that they could discuss jury
selection with him, according to court records. He also testified
during the sentencing phase about how the loss of his father had
devastated his family. In Tyler, John Luttig had been in the oil business, though
associates say he hardly fit the free-wheeling stereotype of a Texas
wildcatter. He was conservative, dependable and practical,
associates say. "One of his great pieces of advice that he gave to
everyone was that the only thing you have is your integrity, so
don't jeopardize it," said John Hills, a petroleum engineer who
worked for Mr. Luttig for eight years. He also was deeply proud of his son, who was a deputy attorney
general under President George Bush and helped shepherd Clarence
Thomas through his Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991. That
same year Judge Luttig was appointed to the Fourth Circuit.
Copyright © 2001. New York Times Company. All rights reserved. saved from url: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/10/national/10DEAT.html
August 10, 2001
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