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| High Court Refuses Stay for Inmate Who Was Juvenile at Time of Crime |
| By AP |
| Published: 08/14/2001 |
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After three U.S. Supreme Court justices recused themselves, the high court voted 3-3 and refused to halt the execution of a Texas inmate who killed the father of a federal judge. A majority ruling is needed for a stay of execution. Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and David Souter abstained without comment from the case of convicted killer Napoleon Beazley. All three justices have ties to the victim's son, J. Michael Luttig, who sits on the Richmond, Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The younger Luttig once served as a law clerk for Scalia and had advised Souter and Thomas during their confirmation hearings. His father, John, 63, was fatally shot by Beazley, then 17, during a 1994 carjacking in Tyler, Texas. Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer voted to grant the stay. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor voted to deny it. Still before the six-member high court is a request that the justices more broadly review Beazley's case, including the question of whether the Constitution bars the execution of those who were under the age of 18 when committing their crimes. Beazley, now 25, is scheduled to die by injection Wednesday. Prosecutors said Beazley was the gunman and he has acknowledged the crime. Beazley's accomplices, each received life sentences. Beazley is among 31 Texas death row prisoners who were 17 - the minimum age to receive the death penalty - at the time of their crime. Amnesty International highlighted the case in a recent report, calling the United States ``a rogue state as far as capital punishment is concerned.'' The American Bar Association, while it has no position on the death penalty in general, opposes it for anyone under 18. |
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