Summary:

On the day of the murder, Beazley told a friend that he might soon be driving a Mercedes to school. That evening, Beazley (17) borrowed his mother's car and drove with Cedric Coleman (19) and Donald Coleman (18) to Tyler. Beazley brought his .45-caliber pistol, as well as a sawed-off shotgun.

After unsuccessfully attempting to carjack a Lexus, Beazley spotted a 1987 Mercedes driven by John Luttig. He and his wife, Bobbie Luttig, were on their way home from Dallas.

Beazley followed the Luttigs to their home and stopped at the end of the driveway. Beazley got out of the car and stripped off his shirt. Armed with the .45-caliber pistol, Beazley ran toward the garage. Donald followed shortly after, carrying Beazley's sawed-off shotgun.

Beazley fired one round from his pistol, hitting Mr. Luttig in the side of the head, leaving him alive but stunned and in a seated position.

Beazley next ran around the car where Mrs. Luttig was getting out of the vehicle and fired at her at close range. Although he missed, she fell to the ground. Beazley then returned to Mr. Luttig, raised his gun, took careful aim, and fired point blank into Mr. Luttig's head.

Standing in his victim's blood, Beazley then rifled Mr. Luttig's pockets looking for the keys to the Mercedes. Escaping, Beazley ran the car into a retaining wall, causing him toabandon it a short distance away. He then rejoined the group, who had followed him from the crime scene, in his mother's car.

Beazley stated that he would get rid of anyone who said anything about the incident. Beazley and his cohorts returned to Grapeland.

A few days after the crime, Beazley confided to a friend that he and the Coleman brothers had attempted to steal a car, and he had shot a man three times in the head and had attempted to kill a woman.

When arrested, Beazley's father asked if he committed the crime of which he was accused, and Beazley replied he had.

Cedric and donald Coleman received Life sentences and testified against Beazley.

Beazley was the 19th murderer executed in the United States since 1976 for a murder committed when younger than 18, and the 11th in Texas.

Final Meal:

None.

Final Words:

None.

ClarkProsecutor.org

Texas Attorney General

Media advisory

Friday, May 24, 2002

Napoleon Beazley Scheduled to be Executed.

AUSTIN - Texas Attorney General John Cornyn offers the following information on Napoleon Beazley, who is scheduled to be executed after 6 p.m. on Tuesday, May 28, 2002:

MEDIA NOTE: In two related cases, Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815, 108 S. Ct. 2687 (1988) and Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361, 109 S. Ct. 2969 (1989), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Eighth and 14th Amendments prohibited the execution of a defendant convicted of first-degree murder when he was 15 years old, but a defendant's constitutional rights were not violated when the sentence was imposed on a defendant who was at least 16 years old at the time of the capital offense. Most states cite Stanford as justification for imposing capital sentences on 16 or 17 year olds.

FACTS OF THE CRIME

On March 17, 1995, Napoleon Beazley was sentenced for the capital offense of murdering John Luttig during a car jacking in Tyler, Texas, on April 19, 1994. At the time of the crime, Beazley, now 25, was approximately three and a half months short of his 18th birthday.

On April 18, 1994, Beazley and his friend, Cedric Coleman, drove from their homes in Grapeland to Corsicana. Cedric had plans to meet some girls at a Corsicana college.

Previously, Beazley had repeatedly expressed a desire to steal a car, and friends had seen him carry a gun. On the way to Corsicana, Beazley told Cedric that he wanted to jack a car."

Beazley carried a .45-caliber pistol on the trip. When reaching the college campus, Beazley looked around at cars and asked Cedric when the students would return to their dorms.

Later in the evening, Beazley stated that he wanted to go to Dallas to steal a car. However, Cedric talked Beazley into waiting another day and the two returned home.

On April 19, 1994, Beazley told a friend that he might soon be driving a Mercedes to school. That evening, Beazley borrowed his mother's car and drove with Cedric and Cedric's younger brother Donald, to Corsicana. Beazley brought his .45-caliber pistol, as well as a sawed-off shotgun.

After driving to Corsicana, they decided to drive to Tyler, and on the way, Beazley spotted a Lexus and told Cedric to follow it. They followed the Lexus to Tyler, but eventually lost sight of it, which angered Beazley.

Later, when heading to a local restaurant, Beazley saw a Mercedes in the restaurant's parking lot. As the driver of the Mercedes exited his vehicle, Beazley jumped out of his car armed with the .45-caliber pistol. However, the driver entered the restaurant before Beazley could reach him, apparently without noticing Beazley.

Cedric yelled at Beazley to get back into the car, and without stopping to eat, Cedric began driving the group back home. Beazley ordered Cedric to turn around and return to Tyler, commenting, "You know, I guess I'm going to have to shoot my driver."

Cedric then pulled the car over and told Beazley that, under the circumstances, he would have to do his own driving. Beazley took the wheel and stated again that he wanted to steal a car. When Cedric asked why, Beazley explained that he wanted to see what it was like to kill somebody.

As the group approached Tyler for the second time, Beazley spotted a 1987 Mercedes driven by John Luttig. He and his wife, Bobbie Luttig, were on their way home from Dallas.

Beazley followed the Luttigs to their home and stopped at the end of the driveway. Beazley got out of the car and stripped off his shirt. Armed with the .45-caliber pistol, Beazley ran toward the garage.

Donald followed shortly after, carrying Beazley's sawed-off shotgun. Beazley fired one round from his pistol, hitting Mr. Luttig in the side of the head, leaving him alive but stunned and in a seated position.

Beazley next ran around the car where Mrs. Luttig was getting out of the vehicle and fired at her at close range. Although he missed, she fell to the ground. Beazley then returned to Mr. Luttig, raised his gun, took careful aim, and fired point blank into Mr. Luttig's head. Standing in his victim's blood, Beazley then rifled Mr. Luttig's pockets looking for the keys to the Mercedes.

As he searched for the keys, Beazley asked Donald if Mrs. Luttig was dead. When Donald said she was still moving, Beazley shouted for him to shoot her, but Donald refused.

Beazley then moved to shoot her, but Donald quickly recanted his previous statement and said that she was dead. [Mrs. Luttig survived the incident and later testified at Beazley's trial.]

Once Beazley found the keys to the Mercedes, he jumped into the car and ordered Donald to get in. Beazley then backed the car out of the garage. However, he ran into a retaining wall, damaging the vehicle, causing him eventually to abandon it a short distance away.

He then rejoined the group, who had followed him from the crime scene, in his mother's car. Beazley stated that he would get rid of anyone who said anything about the incident. Beazley and his cohorts returned to Grapeland.

A few days after the crime, Beazley confided to a friend that he and the Coleman brothers had attempted to steal a car, and he had shot a man three times in the head and had attempted to kill a woman.

When arrested, Beazley's father asked if he committed the crime of which he was accused, and Beazley replied he had. Beazley later commented, in describing his experience of the car jacking and murder, that it "was a trip."

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

July 7, 1994 - Beazley was charged by an indictment returned in Smith County, Texas, with the capital offense of intentionally murdering John Luttig during a robbery.

March 17, 1995 - A jury found Beazley guilty of capital murder on March 13, 1995, and following a separate punishment hearing, assessed the death penalty.

Feb. 26, 1997 - The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief on 38 points of error, affirmed Beazley's conviction and sentence, and later denied rehearing in April 1997. Beazley did not seek certiorari review from the U.S. Supreme Court.

June 3, 1997 - Beazley filed an application for state writ of habeas corpus with the state trial court of conviction.

Sept. 5, 1997 - An evidentiary hearing was held by the trial court.

Oct. 31, 1997 - The trial court entered findings of fact and conclusions of law denying habeas relief.

Jan. 21, 1998 - The Court of Criminal Appeals accepted findings and denied relief.

Oct. 1, 1998 - Beazley petitioned for habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

Sept. 30, 1999 - The U.S. District Court denied relief.

Oct. 26, 1999 - The district court denied reconsideration.

Dec. 28, 1999 - The district court granted permission for Beazley to appeal.

June 1, 2000 - Beazley filed his brief on appeal to the Fifth Circuit.

Feb. 9, 2001 - The Fifth Circuit issued a published opinion affirming the denial of habeas relief.

March 15, 2001 - The Fifth Circuit denied Beazley's petition for rehearing.

March 30, 2001 - The District Court of Smith County, Texas, scheduled Beazley's execution for Aug. 15, 2001.

June 13, 2001 - Beazley petitioned for certiorari review from the denial of federal habeas relief.

June 28, 2001 - Beazley applied for a stay of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Aug. 13, 2001 - The United States Supreme Court denied Beazley's application for stay of execution.

Aug. 15, 2001 - The day of his execution, the Court of Criminal Appeals granted a stay of execution.

Oct. 1, 2001- The United States Supreme Court denies certiorari review.

Apr. 17, 2002 - The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacates the stay of execution.

Apr. 26, 2002 - The District Court of Smith County, Texas, scheduled Beazley's execution for May 28, 2002.

May 7, 2002 - Beazley files a petition for clemency with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

May 13, 2002 - Beazley files a supplemental petition for clemency.

May 17, 2002- Beazley and 3 others file 1983 suit in the U.S. District Court alleging inadequate representation.

May 17, 2002 - U.S. District Judge Hayden Head dismisses the lawsuit. Notice of Appeal filed.

May 21, 2002 - The Fifth Circuit issued an opinion affirming the lower court's judgment, denying injunctive relief.

May 22, 2002 - Beazley petitions for certiorari review to the United States Supreme Court.

** Currently, Beazley's petition for certiorari review and his application for stay of execution are still pending with the United States Supreme Court. In addition, his petition for clemency is still pending with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. **

PRIOR CRIMINAL HISTORY

No evidence of prior criminal convictions was presented to the jury at the punishment phase of trial. However, the jury heard evidence that Beazley had been selling drugs since age 13.

ProDeathPenalty.com

Napolean Beazley and 2 friends spotted John Luttig's Mercedes Benz on the night of April 19, 1994, and followed it to the Luttig home in an affluent neighborhood of this East Texas city of 75,000.

The plan was to steal the car and sell it to a Dallas "chop shop." Luttig pulled into his garage and got out of the car. Beazley shot the 63-year-old man twice in the head with a .45-caliber handgun. Bobbie Luttig dropped face down on the garage floor to hide. She could see her husband bleeding on the pavement. She thought she was going to die. Speeding from the Luttigs' home, Beazley damaged the car and abandoned it on a nearby street.

The 3 men, Beazley and brothers Cedrick and Donald Coleman, fled back to their home town of Grapeland, about 70 miles southwest of Tyler.

A year later, the Colemans were in prison and Beazley was on death row. The Luttigs' son helped put them there. "Words seem trite in describing what follows when your . . . father is stripped away from your life: the despair, the chaos, the confusion, the sense -- perhaps temporary, perhaps not -- that one's life has no further purpose," his son, J. Michael Luttig, said at the Colemans' trial.

He would give similar, lengthy testimony in Beazley's capital murder trial. It might have just been another mid-'90s carjacking turned deadly if Michael Luttig was not one of the most influential judges on one of the most influential federal appeals courts in the country -- and one of the toughest appeals court when it comes to death penalty cases. Sitting on the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since 1991, Luttig is apparently the only living federal judge whose father had been slain.

At the federal hijacking trial of the Colemans, Luttig addressed the judge and described how difficult it was to receive word from a close friend that his father was dead . . . "realizing at that very moment, at that very moment that the man you have worshipped all your life is lying on his back in your driveway with two bullets through his head. It is thinking the unthinkable that perhaps the act was in retaliation for something you had done in your own job," said Luttig. "On behalf of my dad and on behalf of my mother and family I respectfully request that those who committed this brutal crime receive the full punishment that the law provides," Luttig said.

Luttig made similar remarks in Beazley's capital murder trial in state court, but did not ask for the death penalty. Shortly after the death penalty was imposed, he was quoted by the media as saying, "There's no one in my family that's happy about what occurred today." However, he also said: "Individuals must be held accountable at some point for actions such as this. I thought this was an appropriate case for the death penalty." . . .

A quicker red light, a longer green, a wrong turn and John Luttig and Napolean Beazley might never have met. Luttig, born in Pittsburgh, was a Korean War veteran. He married, and raised a son and daughter. He was a petroleum engineer for Atlantic Richfield and then he went into business for himself, supervising wells across the country.

In his private life, he was an elder at Tyler's First Presbyterian Church and vice moderator of the Grace Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., said the Rev. Dick Ramsey, former pastor of the church. Luttig had also served on the Tyler Planning Zoning Commission. "John was a great guy, he really was," said Jim Rippy a friend and fellow oil man. "He was a gentlemen in everything he did -- outgoing, he had kind of a nice wit about him and he had a good relationship with everybody here." As part of a Christmas present to his wife, Luttig enrolled Bobbie in a night class at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where she was studying for a master of divinity degree, Ramsey said. On the night he died, Luttig had driven her to Dallas for the 6 p.m. class, waited for her, then they drove home.

Napolean Beazley, 17, was the president of his senior class. The starting running back for the Grapeland High School Sandies his last season and a 440-relay track runner, Beazley was headed for the Marine Corps after high school.

Then, about 47 days after Luttig was killed, a tip led police to Grapeland. 2 weeks after Beazley graduated 13th out of his class of 60, he was arrested and charged with murder. About 47 days elapsed between the slaying and Beazley's arrest. "He was well-known . . . he had plenty of friends and he did a lot of good things in his life," his father, Ireland Beazley, said. The senior Beazley is a steel worker and city councilman in Grapeland which has a population of 1,468. His wife, Rena, was the secretary to the county judge. Beazley said that, in addition to football and track, his son played baseball and lifted weights competitively.

The Beazleys were proud of Napolean. They did not know he was leading a secret life. On April 19, Beazley took his mother's red Ford Probe and wound up in Tyler with the Colemans. Beazley, a crack dealer armed with a .45-caliber handgun, was looking for a car to hijack. "I went to school, I went to Sunday school every Sunday, I walked old ladies across the street -- all that stuff," said Beazley, interviewed on Texas' death row. He said he wasn't using crack at the time of the murder and he wasn't drunk, either. So, what happened? "A lot of people ask that question. I ask myself that question, too," said Beazley. "I can't really explain it to you, because it would always seem like a justification. When you lay it all out . . . it can come out as a justification and, for me, there is no justification for what happened." With an appeal pending, there is much about the crime that he cannot discuss. "I don't admit anything. . . . I don't say anything about it. Let the evidence speak for itself.

The testimony mostly came from those 2 guys who were also involved in the crime." The Coleman brothers, who received life sentences, testified against Beazley. Beazley does not deny he was there. "They had a bloody footprint from my shoe, they had a palm print on the body of the car that came from me." And, he says, "I don't blame my family, I don't blame my friends, I don't blame society, I can't blame a federal judge. I don't blame anybody else for being here but me."

During his trial, Beazley remembers Judge Luttig testifying. He said he felt sorry for him for losing his father. He has not tried to contact the family and apologize for fear of hurting them further, he said. "They're going through their own pain right now and I don't want to add to that. If I could alleviate it, if I could take it away from them, then I would." Beazley paused when asked if given the chance to talk to Michael Luttig what would he say? "What can you say to somebody in that situation? No words could comfort him, not coming from me, anyway. I don't think I would say anything. I think I would, for once, just listen. What would I do if somebody murdered my daddy? How would I feel?" He said he is not sure.

Justice For All

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL LUTTIG AT THE SENTENCING OF CEDRIC AND DONALD COLEMAN IN FEDERAL COURT

AN ALLOCUTION OF A FEDERAL JUDGE ON VICTIMIZATION - Three young men bent on stealing a Mercedes-Benz killed a federal judge's father on April 19, 1994, in Dallas.

Before brothers Donald Coleman, 19, and Cedric Coleman, 21, were sentenced last January by Senior U.S. District Judge William Steger of Tyler for carjacking, possession of a firearm and possession of a short-barreled shotgun, the victim's son, Judge Michael Luttig of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, stood to tell the court how terribly their crime had hurt him and his family.

The Coleman brothers and Napoleon Beazley were in a red Ford Probe the night they followed John and Bobbie Luttig home and Beazley and Donald Coleman jumped from their own car armed with a pistol and a sawed-off shotgun.

According to the Tyler Morning Telegraph's accounts of the trial, John Luttig was shot in the head as he stepped out of his car; his wife survived by feigning death and rolling under the car. The assailants backed the car out of the garage over her and abandoned it a few blocks away.

The three men were arrested two months later. (Beazley, now 18, was a minor at the time of the crime and was not named in the federal indictment.) Judge Luttig asked for the maximum, a life sentence. But after his emotional statement to the court, Steger said he could not depart from the sentencing guidelines. Donald Coleman got 43 years, nine months in prison. Cedric Coleman got 40 years, five months. They and Beazley face capital murder and aggravated robbery charges in state court.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL LUTTIG

May it please the Court. It is one of life's ironies that I appear before the Court for the reason that I do. But I do so to represent my dad -- who is not here -- and his wife, and daughters. His family, my family. More than anything else, I do this to honor him, because if the roles were reversed, he would be standing here today. Of this I am certain. I also owe this to the other victims of violent crime who either stand silently by, or who speak and are not heard. I owe it to the public. I owe it, as well, to Donald and Cedric Coleman, who may yet not understand the magnitude of the losses they inflicted on the night of April 19.

Words seem trite in describing what follows when your husband is murdered in your presence, when your father is stripped from your life. The horror, the agony, the emptiness, the despair, the chaos, the confusion, the sense -- perhaps temporary, but perhaps not -- that one's life no longer has any purpose, the doubt, the hopelessness. There are no words that can possibly describe it, and all it entails. But being the victim of a violent crime such as this is at least these things. Exactly these things in my family's case; the equivalent of these things in the countless other cases.

While it is happening and in the seconds and the minutes thereafter. . .

... it's the sheer horror of half-clothed people with guns storming up your driveway toward you in the dark of night, when you are totally defenseless.

... it's what must be the terrifying realization that you are first about to be, and then actually being, murdered.

... it's perhaps seeing in your last moment what in your mind you know was the murder of your wife.

... it's crawling on the floor of your own garage in the grease and filth, pretending you're dead, so that you won't be shot through the head by the person who just murdered your husband.

... it's realizing your husband has been gunned down in your driveway on your return from the final class you needed to complete your education -- an education that had been the goal of both of you since the day you were married.

... it's knowing that the reason that your husband was with you -- indeed, the reason that you were in the car that night at all -- is that his Christmas gift to you the previous year was the promise that you could take the class and that he would take you to and from, so that nothing would happen to you.

... it's mercilessly punishing yourself over whether you could have done something, anything at all, to have stopped the killing.

Moments later, across a continent...

... it's being frightened out of your mind in the middle of the night by a frantic banging on your door -- calling the police, then canceling the call -- and then answering the door. Your body goes limp as you see one of your best friends standing in the doorway. No words need even be spoken. For you know that the worst in life has happened. Then, he tells you: "Your mom just called. Father was murdered in the driveway of your home."

... it's realizing that, at that very moment, the man you have worshipped all your life is lying on his back in your driveway with two bullets through his head.

Across the globe. . .

... it's your husband taking the emergency international call, pulling down the receiver, fumbling for the words, as he starts to deliver the news. "This is the hardest thing I will ever have to tell you," he begins. Then, it is the calls home, or at least to what used to be home, first one, then the other. In eerie, stunned calmness, you hear your mother utter the feared confirmation: "Yes, your dad was just murdered. You better come home." Now you believe.

Within hours. . .

... it's arriving home to television cameras in your front yard, to see your house cordoned off by police lines; police conducting ballistics and forensics tests, and studying the place in the driveway where your father had finally fallen dead -- all as if it were a set from a television production.

... it's going down to the store where your dad had always shopped for clothes, to buy a shirt, a tie that will match his suit, and a package of three sets of underwear (you can only buy them in sets of three) so your dad will look nice when he is buried.

... it's being called by the funeral home and told that it recommends that the casket be closed and that perhaps your mom, sister, and wife should not see the body -- and you know why, without even asking.

... it's walking into the viewing room at the funeral home and having your sister cry out that that just can't be him, it just can't be.

In the days that follow . . .

... it's living in a hotel in your own hometown, blocks away from where you have lived your whole life, because you just can't bear to go back.

... it's packing up the family home, item by item, memory by memory, as if all of the lives that were there only hours before are no more.

... it's reading the letters from you, your sister, and your wife, that your dad secreted away in his most private places, unbeknownst to you, realizing that the ones he invariably saved were the ones that just said "thanks" or "I love you." And really understanding for the first time that that truly was all that he ever needed to hear or to receive in return, just as he always told you.

... it's carefully folding each or your husband's shirts, as you have always done, so that they will be neat when they are given away.

... it's watching your mother do this, in your own mind begging her to stop.

... it's cleaning out your dad's sock drawer, his underwear drawer, his ties.

... it's packing up your dad's office for him, from the family picture to the last pen and pencil.

... it's reading the brochures in his top drawer about the fishing trip you and he were to take in two months -- the trip that your mother had asked you to go on because it meant so much to your dad.

In the weeks thereafter. . .

... it's living in absolute terror, not knowing who had murdered your husband and tried to murder you, but realizing that often such people come back to complete the deed, and wondering if they would return this time.

... it's furiously writing down the license number of every Ford Probe for no reason other than it was a Ford Probe, hoping that through serendipity, it might be, and sometimes fearing, that that is exactly what might happen.

... it's never spending another night in your own home because the pain is too great and the memories too fresh.

... it's all day every day, and all night, racking your brain to the point of literal exhaustion over who possibly could have done this. It's questioningly looking in the corners of every relationship, to the point that, at times, you are almost ashamed of yourself. Yet you have no choice but to continue, because, as they say, it could be anyone.

... it's thinking the unthinkable, that perhaps the act was in retaliation for something you had done in your job. You ask yourself, "If it was, should I just walk away?"

... it's watching the re-enactment of your dad's, your husband's murder on television, day and night, and every time you pick up the newspaper.

... it's reading the "wanted" poster for the people who murdered him, while checking out at the grocery store.

... it's telling your family night after night that it will be all right, when you don't believe it yourself.

Then they are finally found, and. . .

... it's collapsing on the kitchen floor when you are told -- not from relief, but from the ultimate despair in learning that your husband was indeed killed for nothing but a car, and in an act so random as to defy comprehension.

... it's watching your mother collapse on the floor when she hears this news and knowing that she will not just have to relive the fateful night in her own mind, now she will have to relive it in public courtrooms, over and over again, for months on end.

In the months that follow. . .

... it's putting the family home up for sale and being told that everyone thinks it is beautiful, but they just don't think they could live there, because a murder took place in the driveway.

... it's the humiliation of being told by the credit card companies, after they closed your husband's accounts because of his death, that they are unable to extend you credit because you are not currently employed.

... it's receiving an anonymous call that begins, "I just learned of the brutal carjacking and murder of your father," and that ends by saying. "I only wish your mother had been raped and murdered, too."

... it's the crushing anxiety of awaiting the trauma and uncertainties of public trials.

The day arrives, and. . .

... it's listening, for the first time, to the tape of your mother's 911 call to report that her husband, your father, had been murdered. Hearing the terror in her voice. Catching yourself before you pass out from the shock of knowing that, through that tape, you are present at the very moment it all happened.

... it's hearing the autopsy report on how the bullets entered your father's skull, penetrated and exited his brain, and went through his shoulder and arm.

... it's listening to testimony as to how long he might have been conscious, and thus aware of what was happening -- not just to him but to the woman that he had always said he would give his life for.

... it's looking at the photographs of your dad lying in the driveway in a pool of blood, as they are projected on a large screen before your friends and family, and before what might as well be the whole world.

... it's having to ask your son what the expression was on your husband's face.

... it's listening to a confession in which the person says that he just thought your dad was "playing possum."

... it's listening to your own mother, a lady of ultimate grace, testify publicly as to how she crawled under the car, in the grease and the filth, to avoid being murdered.

... it's hearing her say that the only thing she could think of was what it was going to be like to be shot through the back of the head.

... it's watching her face as she relives that night, time and again.

As the trauma of the trial subsides. . .

... it's getting down on your hands and knees and straightening your dad's new grave marker and packing the fresh dirt around it, so that it will be perfect, as he always insisted that things be for you.

... it's sitting across from each other at Thanksgiving dinner, each knowing that there is but one thing on the other's mind, yet pretending otherwise for their sake.

... it's telling your wife that the meat was great, when you could barely keep it down and hardly wait to finish.

... it's trying to pick out a Christmas gift for your mother that your dad would have picked out for her.

... it's sitting beside your father's grave into the night in 30-degree weather, so that he won't be alone on the first Christmas.

... it's putting up, by yourself, the basketball goal that you got last Christmas so that you and your dad could relive memories as you passed the years together.

... it's finishing by yourself all of the projects that you have not an idea how to do, and that your dad had said, "Save for the summer and we'll do them together. I'll show you how."

... it's hearing your 2-year-old daughter ask for "Pawpaw" and seeing your wife choke back the tears and tell her, "He's gone now, he's in heaven."

... it's having the clothes your dad was most proud of altered, so you can wear them in his honor.

... it's wondering whether your wearing the clothes will be too painful for your mother.

In the larger sense. . .

... it's shaking every time you drive into a darkened driveway.

... it's feeling your body get rigid every time that you drive into a garage.

... it's being nervous every time you walk to your car, even in the open daylight.

... it's being scared to answer any phone call or any knock at the door at night (or, for that matter, during the day) because another messenger may be calling.

Finally, it's the long-term effects. .

... it's the inexplicable sense of embarrassment when you tell someone that your husband or your father was murdered -- almost a sense of guilt over injecting ugliness into their lives.

... it's going out to dinner alone, knowing that you will be going out alone the rest of your life.

... it's that feeling -- wrong, but inevitable -- that you will always be the fifth wheel.

... it's living the rest of your life with the fact that your husband, your father, suffered one of the most horrifying deaths possible.

... it's never knowing, yet fearing that you know all too well, what those final moments must have been like.

... it's constantly visualizing yourself in his place that night, moment by excruciating moment.

... it's realizing that you will never even get the chance to repay your dad for making your dreams come true.

... it's living with the uncomfortable irony that he lived just long enough to see to it that your dreams came true, but that his never will.

... it's knowing you never had, and will never have, that one last time to say thanks for giving me, first, life itself, and then, all that it holds.

And. . .

... it's knowing that this is only the beginning and the worst is yet to come... The haunting images... The emptiness... The loneliness... The directionlessness... The sickening sense that it all ended some time ago, and that you are but biding time.

Of course, for my mother, my sister, my wife and I, the sun will come up again, but it will never come up again for the real victim of this crime. Not only will he never see what he worked a lifetime for, and was finally within reach of obtaining. That would be tragedy enough. But, even worse, he died knowing that the only thing that ever could have ruined his life had come to pass -- that his wife and his family might have to suffer the kind of pain that is now ours -- and he was helpless to prevent it even as he saw its inevitability. We live by law in this county so that, ideally, no one will ever have to know what it is like to be a victim of such violent crime. If I had any wish, any wish in the world, it would be that no one ever again would have to go through what my mother and my father experienced on the night of April 19, what my family has endured since and must carry with us the rest of our lives. Crimes such as that committed against my family are intolerable in any society that calls itself not only free, but civilized. The law recognizes as much, and it provides for punishment that will ensure at least that others will not suffer again at the same hands, even if it does not prevent recurrence at the hands of others. On behalf of my dad, and on behalf of my mother and family, I respectfully request that these who committed this brutal crime receive the full punishment that the law provides. Three people were needed to complete this crime. Each of the three was as instrumental to its success as the other. There were no passive bystanders among the gang that executed my dad. Thank you, Your Honor.

Texas Execution Information Center by David Carson

Txexecutions.org

Napoleon Beazley, 25, was executed by lethal injection on 28 May in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a man he and two others carjacked.

In April, Beazley, then 17, borrowed his mother's car and drove with two other youths to Tyler, Texas. Beazley's friend, Cedric Coleman, drove, and Cedric's younger brother, Donald, went with them. They saw a Mercedes in a restaurant parking lot. Beazley jumped out of his car, armed with a .45-caliber pistol, and approached the driver of the Mercedes. The man entered the restaurant, apparently without noticing Beazley.

Beazley got back in the car and the group began driving back home. However, according to trial testimony, Beazley told Cedric Coleman to turn back so he could shoot the driver and steal the Mercedes. Coleman pulled the car over and told Beazley he would have to do his own driving, so Beazley took the wheel.

As the group approached Tyler for the second time, Beazley spotted a 1987 Mercedes Benz. Beazley followed the car until it pulled into the garage of a house. He then got out of his car and ran to the driver's side of the Mercedes. He fired one round from his .45, hitting John E. Luttig, 63, in the head. He then ran around to the passenger's side, where Bobbie Luttig was getting out of the vehicle. He fired at her and, though he missed, she fell to the ground. Beazley then returned to Mr. Luttig, saw that he was still alive in the driver's seat, and fired again at his head at close range.

While Beazley was looking for the keys, he asked Donald Coleman, who was carrying Beazley's sawed-off shotgun, whether Mrs. Luttig was dead. When Donald said she was still moving, Beazley shouted for him to shoot her, but he refused. Beazley then began to come around to shoot her, but Donald quickly changed his statement and said that she was dead. Once Beazley found the keys, he backed the car out of the garage. However, he hit a wall, damaging the vehicle. He abandoned it a short distance away, rejoined the Coleman brothers in his mother's car, and the group returned home. They were arrested more than 45 days later.

Cedric Coleman, Donald Coleman, and Bobbie Luttig testified against Beazley at his trial. A jury found him guilty of capital murder in March 1995 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and death sentence in February 1997. Beazley received an evidentiary hearing for his state habeas corpus appeal in September 1997. That appeal was later denied, as were all of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court. Cedric and Donald Coleman pleaded guilty to capital murder and received life sentences. They were also convicted of carjacking in federal court and are currently serving time in federal prison.

After the trial, the Coleman brothers recanted some of their testimony, claiming they were manipulated by Smith County prosecutor David Dobbs. "Dobbs actually threatened me by telling me if I didn't testify the way he wanted that he would make sure my brother got the death penalty," Cedric Coleman stated in an affidavit in July 2001. This matter was not raised in Beazley's original state habeas corpus appeal. Beazley's lawyer, Walter Long, also raised some objections regarding the fairness of Beazley's trial, such as the fact that his jury was all-white, while he was black, and concerns that the victim's son, who is a federal judge, might have meddled in the case. Long argued that Beazley's former lawyer was incompetent for not making these objections during the case's habeas corpus stage.

Beazley was originally scheduled to be executed on 15 August 2001. The U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal, and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected his clemency appeal by a 10-6 vote. However, on the morning of his scheduled execution, Beazley won a stay from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

In April 2002, the Court of Criminal Appeals ruled unfavorably on another death penalty case dealing with attorney incompetence during habeas corpus appeals. After making this ruling, the court lifted Beazley's stay and allowed his execution to be rescheduled.

Beazley's case drew international attention because he was 3½ months shy of his 18th birthday when he killed John Luttig. Texas is one of 22 states that allows the death penalty for defendants 17 or older, and the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld such state laws. Nevertheless, Beazley's lawyers and U.S. and international anti-death-penalty activists lobbied the governor and the parole board for clemency.

The victim was the father of J. Michael Luttig, a federal appeals court judge. Three members of the U.S. Supreme Court who have personal ties with Michael Luttig -- Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and David Souter -- removed themselves from Beazley's case whenever it was before them. In August 2001, the other six members of the court voted 3-3 to deny a stay to Beazley. On 27 May, when his stay request came before them for the second time, the vote was 6-0 against.

Legal experts said that none of the three Justices were legally required to remove themselves from Beazley's case, but they did so to remove the appearance of bias.

Beazley's own statements regarding his requests for clemency did not mirror the arguments made by his lawyer and the activists lobbying on his behalf. He did not claim that he was unfairly convicted or sentenced or that he did not deserve death because he was only 17 when he committed the crime. "I don't like to give ... explanations or excuses," he said from death row. "Whether I was 15, 16, 17, 21, 25, it should never have happened." Instead, he said that he was remorseful for what he had done, was a changed person, and was no longer a threat to anyone. "It's my fault," he said in a court hearing in April. "I violated the law. I violated this city, and I violated a family ... I'm sorry. I wish I had a second chance to make up for it."

When Beazley killed Luttig, he was from an upper-middle class family, was a star athlete at his high school, and was the president of his senior class. He had never been arrested, but he had started carrying guns and dealing drugs. "There is no turning point where I can say I decided to be bad," he said from death row. It's a process. An acorn doesn't become an oak tree overnight." A model prisoner during his eight years on death row, Beazley said that he was no longer a threat to anyone and could prove that he had changed. Beazley said that the fact that people around the world were supporting him and working to prevent his execution gave him no consolation. "I could have the support of the whole world ... but if Mrs. Luttig and her family wouldn't give me [forgiveness], It would be for nothing."

Smith County District Attorney Jack Skeen, whose office prosecuted Beazley, said that Beazley's actions following the crime showed a lack of remorse. Skeen pointed out that Beazley avoided arrest for 45 days, attempted to hide the murder weapon, and lied to police about his involvement in the murder. He did not apologize to the Luttig family until his execution date drew near and his clemency requests were being prepared, prosecutors said.

On the day of his execution, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 10-7 against commuting Beazley's sentence to life in prison. Governor Rick Perry declined to grant an emergency 30-day stay. At his execution, the warden asked Beazley if he wanted to make a last statement. Beazley turned his head towards Suzanne Luttig, the victim's daughter, paused, and said "no." He shook his head, said, "no" again, and then turned his head to face the ceiling. He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m.

In a statement released to the media after his execution, Beazley apologized again for his "senseless" crime, but also criticized the Texas criminal justice system for not giving him a second chance.