Juvenile defendant
Texas court stays Beazley execution
By Gloria
Rubac
Houston
Napoleon Beazley, an African American who was 17 years old
when charged with capital murder, received a stay from Texas'
highest court on Aug. 15, just hours before he was to become
the 10th juvenile executed in Texas since executions resumed
here in 1982.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry had told the media the day before
Beazley's execution date that he had a 17-year-old son and his
son knew right from wrong.
"The governor's son wouldn't want to be tried by an
all-Black jury! He'd raise the roof on that! But my son had all
the Blacks struck off his jury," Napoleon Beaz ley's father
told Workers World.
Beazley's father, Ireland Beazley, said that there were a
lot of Black people on the jury panel but they were all
removed, including a college professor. "And I'll tell you why:
Most Blacks are against the death penalty. During voir dire
they were asked their opinions and they were honest. They said
that they could not give any defendant the death penalty."
One reason of the 10 cited in Beazley's final appeal was
racism on the jury. "One juror flies a confederate flag in her
front yard and is a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy.
And the wife of another juror used the 'n' word after the
trial, saying 'The n----- got what he deserved!' When she was
asked about this, she said that this was her husband's feeling,
too," Beazley continued.
Speaking from their home in East Texas, which has
historically been known for its racism and Ku Klux Klan
activity, Ireland Beazley and his wife, Rena Beazley, both
agreed that there is a shift in opinion on the death
penalty.
"I think peoples' opinions are changing on the death
penalty. If there was an execution every four or five years,
probably no one would think a thing about it. But when there's
an assembly line of death like here in Texas, people begin
questioning. They ask why there're 30 and 40 executions a year.
This high rate is turning off people to the death penalty,"
Beazley said.
Both parents feel strongly that the prominence of the
victim's son--a federal judge in Virginia being considered for
the Supreme Court--played a key role in their son getting the
death penalty.
Family pleased by stay
Rena Beazley said she was elated when she got the news of a
stay. "We had a house full of people and I was in my robe
getting ready to get dressed and go to Huntsville to have a
prayer vigil. I felt like the whole roof had been raised--there
was such a weight taken off of us."
She said that the community of Grapeland, their hometown,
had gotten behind Napoleon. "Ours is a small community. The
schools are small. We all know each other and everyone thought
that Napoleon was a sweet boy. We have prayed together and this
support has strengthened us."
Napoleon Beazley's support didn't come just from Grapeland.
From the Los Angeles Times to the Washington Post, from Europe
to Australia, from Amnesty International to the NAACP, many
around the world were aware Beazley's background and record
should have mitigated his sentence. He had an exemplary
childhood. Like his father before him, was elected president of
his senior class. He was a star football player, a good student
and he attended Sunday School.
Unfortunately, he went with two older friends on a
carjacking and a man was killed. It turned out that the man's
son was a powerful federal judge so connected in top legal
circles that three members of the U.S. Supreme Court found it
necessary to remove themselves from the decision when the court
was considering a stay of execution in the case.
Beazley's original appeal attorney admits he was
ineffective. He did not even interview the two co-defendants,
who testified against Beasley in exchange for lighter
sentences. Both have since recanted.
Execution of juveniles
One major factor in Beazley's case receiving so much media
and becoming the focus for anti-death penalty groups worldwide
is that Beazley was a juvenile when the crime was
committed.
A study by Professor Victor Strieb of Ohio Northern
University found some firm patterns in the profiles of the
teenagers sent to death row.
All of the defendants were male and two-thirds were African
American or Latino. Two-thirds of their victims had been white.
Half the victims were women and more than a third of the
murders involved rape. The research highlighted the racial and
cultural problems that lie beneath the U.S.'s crisis in violent
teenage crime.
More and more, Professor Strieb's work has been used to
amplify the U.S.'s increasing international isolation on the
death penalty, as only three countries have executed juveniles
in the last four years.
Just over a year ago, another juvenile was executed in
Texas--Shaka Sankofa. He was not only 17 when arrested, but was
likely innocent. His case, along with George Bush's
presidential election campaign, brought incredible attention to
the death penalty in Texas.
Bush's defense of Texas justice brought out criticism from
all fronts and the eyes of the world were on Texas. Most Texas
politicians were furious with the outside criticism, but many
of the people living here were embarrassed.
At the last session of the Texas legislature, many criminal
justice reforms passed, including improvement in legal
representation for the poor, DNA testing made more available,
and even a bill to stop executing the mentally retarded. Bush's
successor vetoed this bill after it had passed both the Texas
House and Senate.
Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement activist Njeri Shakur
told Workers World that "as world opinion shifts away from the
death penalty, Texas is feeling the ripples of this. The
movement to stop capital punishment is growing, despite an
uphill battle. Small victories are having a cumulative effect.
A campaign is underway to stop the horrific torture on Texas
death row and more and more Texans are favoring a moratorium on
executions. We do now see a light, however faint, at the end of
the tunnel,"
Beazley's family has been invited to speak at the Second
Annual March for a Moratorium on Oct. 27 at the Texas capitol
in Austin, and Beazley's mother said they would be honored to
be there.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
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