In Rare 3-3 Vote, High Court Refuses to Delay Execution

On an unusual 3-3 vote, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to halt the execution of a Texas man who, as a teenager, shot and killed the father of a prominent Virginia judge.

Three members of the high court recused themselves from the case because they are friends of the victim’s son. Three other justices voted to halt the execution and hear the appeal, while the remaining three voted to let it proceed.

Under the rules, it takes a majority of participating justices to halt an execution.

Monday’s action clears the way for Texas officials to put 25-year-old Napoleon Beazley to death Wednesday evening.

His lawyers had hoped that the Supreme Court would take up his case because he was just 17 years old when he committed his crime. The United States stands alone in permitting juvenile offenders to be executed, they argued. Since 1990, 14 people have been executed for murders committed when they were age 16 or 17, half of them in Texas.

The Supreme Court routinely receives last-minute pleas to halt executions. Several times a year, the justices vote to stop a death sentence from being carried out so they can consider the legal issues raised in the appeal.

But this latest case was unusual because the justices themselves were touched by the brutal crime that led to the death sentence.

All of them know--and most of them are friends with--J. Michael Luttig, a U.S. appeals court judge who lives in the Virginia suburbs of Washington.

A native of Tyler, Texas, Luttig came to Washington in the early 1980s and made a name for himself in conservative circles. He worked in the Reagan White House, clerked for then-Judge Antonin Scalia, clerked at the Supreme Court for then-Chief Justice Warren Burger and headed a key Justice Department office under then-President Bush.

He shepherded New Hampshire Judge David H. Souter through his Senate confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1990. A year later, Bush named Luttig to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. In a controversial move, Luttig delayed taking his seat on the bench so that he could work on behalf of embattled Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

Three years later, tragedy struck Luttig’s family. His parents were attacked in the driveway of their Texas home by three young men who wanted to steal their 10-year-old Mercedes-Benz.

One of the attackers threw 63-year-old John Luttig to the ground and shot him in the head. The assailant then fired at Luttig’s wife, Bonnie, who was struck but survived by playing dead. The shooter took the car keys from John Luttig’s pocket and drove away.

Striking Contrasts in Descriptions

The crime also shocked the small East Texas town of Grapeland when police captured the shooter. Then 17, Beazley had been elected president of his senior class; he had no criminal record. The school principal, teachers and coaches came forward to say Beazley was a model student, popular and athletic. They said they saw no signs that he was violent. No one could recall even an instance of him acting as a schoolyard bully.

But two brothers who also took part in the carjacking, Cedric and Donald Coleman, described a different person. They told police that Beazley was the ringleader and was ruthlessly determined to steal a Mercedes-Benz for his use. They also quoted him as saying that he wanted to see “what it was like to kill somebody.” After the murder, Beazley told his two cohorts that he would “get rid of” anyone who talked, according to their testimony.

Beazley, who is black, was tried and convicted by an all-white jury in Tyler. And despite the favorable testimony from those who knew him at school, the panel sentenced him to die.

In upholding his sentence, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said that the facts of Beazley’s case show not just a planned and deliberate murder, but also reveal “a dangerous, self-indulgent drive to kill for the sake of killing.” The Coleman brothers also were convicted; they received life sentences.

In June, Beazley’s lawyers asked the high court to take up his case to reconsider the constitutionality of executing people for crimes committed when they were younger than 18.

In the spring, the court had announced that it would reconsider whether it was cruel and unusual punishment to execute murderers who are mentally retarded.

The court last considered both issues in 1989. In a pair of 5-4 rulings, the justices upheld state laws that impose the death penalty on murderers who are retarded or are as young as 16 when they commit crimes.

O’Connor Twice Was the Deciding Factor

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor cast the deciding vote in both cases, and said there was as yet no national consensus that would warrant abolishing these penalties as cruel and unusual.

Opponents of capital punishment hoped to convince O’Connor that such a consensus has emerged in the last decade.

Since 1993, only three states--Texas, Virginia and Oklahoma--have carried out executions of convicts whose offenses took place when they were under age 18.

Around the world, only Iran and Congo continued to carry out executions of juveniles until recently, when both nations disavowed such punishments, Beazley’s lawyers said.

“Texas is the world’s most prolific executioner of child offenders,” they said, which gives the court good reason to take up Beazley’s legal appeal.

On July 26, they filed an emergency motion to halt his execution while his legal appeal was pending.

Normally, such appeals go to Justice Scalia, who oversees the region that includes Texas. But he announced he had withdrawn from the case involving Luttig’s father.

The emergency appeal was forwarded to the full court, but Thomas and Souter also announced they were taking no part in the decision.

That left six justices, and Beazley’s lawyers fell one vote short of obtaining a majority. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer voted to grant the appeal, but Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and O’Connor voted to deny it.

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