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CNN Live Saturday

Interviews With Walter Long, Jack Skeen

Aired May 25, 2002 - 12:17   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And joining me now to talk more about this case is Walter Long, Beazley's defense attorney, and also joining me by telephone is Jack Skeen, the prosecutor in the case. Thanks very much, both of you, joining us.

JACK SKEEN, BEAZLEY CASE PROSECUTOR: Yes, ma'am.

WHITFIELD: Mr. Long, I'd like to begin with you. You're hoping that the Board of Pardons and Parole just might grant some clemency early Tuesday morning, just hours before that scheduled execution. You said yourself Napoleon thinks you're crazy for thinking that. Why do you feel that you still have a pretty good chance that perhaps you just might be able to get a stay?

WALTER LONG, BEAZLEY'S DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I think that there are all sorts of unresolved issues in this case that the board needs to look at. There were recantations by the Coleman brothers about testimony that goes to the heart of Napoleon's intent at the time of the offense.

WHITFIELD: And the Coleman brothers were accomplices?

LONG: Yes, two accomplice witnesses. And to the state of mind (UNINTELLIGIBLE), stuff that was very prejudicial at the trial. Texas law considers the accomplice witnesses to be inherently unreliable.

WHITFIELD: Now, Mr. Long, Napoleon himself is not saying, nor are you, taking the position that he did not commit the crime. The problem here is that, in your view and his family's view, is that he was 17 years old, he was a minor at the time when the crime was committed, but the state of Texas allows for those who are 17 and older to be considered death penalty cases. So how do you make the argument that that standard should not be set for him?

LONG: Well, it's contrary to international law. The Human Rights Committee of the United Nations has said that it deplores this practice in the United States. The U.N. Subcommission on Human Rights in 2000 said that it's contrary to international law and that nations need to instruct their judges that they need to stop the practice. It is abandoned by every country in the world, including now Somalia, who just told the United Nations special session on the convention of the rights of the child about a week ago that it is going to -- I think it signed it or it said it was going to sign the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which bans the practice, and it's going to ratify it very quickly, leaving the United States the only country in the world -- that's over 190 countries -- that has not done so.

But even the federal government of the United States has raised the eligibility age to 18 and no longer gives the death penalty to child offenders.

WHITFIELD: So, Mr. Skeen, let me bring you in here, because it sounds as though the Texas Court of Appeals that granted a stay most recently is almost in part agreeing with Mr. Long that perhaps something is wrong, that perhaps the constitutionality should be challenged here. Is it right to put a person who committed a crime at 17 to death?

SKEEN: Well, first of all, I don't believe at all that the Court of Criminal Appeals was looking at the age issue when they granted the stay, and there wasn't any indication in their order why they granted the stay. When they wrote the original opinion affirming the conviction and the death sentence on direct appeal from the trial back in January 1995, they described the defendant's actions as both with forethought in committing the crime and a deliberate execution of the crime, and further that his actions revealed not just the intention to commit an offense, but a dangerous self-indulgent drive to kill for the sake of killing, just to see how it felt.

So the court definitely set out in detail the facts of the crime that was committed by Beazley, and I think it's important -- and I'm sure we don't have time here to go through all of those facts -- but it's important, first of all, to look at the facts of capital murder, which he did, in fact, commit, was found guilty of committing, because it was a random predatory hunt-down of the victims in the case.

And let me go on, and if I can -- I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you -- but just to go on to the Court of Criminal Appeals. When the Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the case like last time, I think most individuals agreed or most lawyers looking at it agreed that it was stayed last time for the purpose of for them to render a decision in a case which was referred to as the Graze (ph) case.

WHITFIELD: Well, Mr. Skeen, let me just ask you real quick, if I could just interject, then how much of this, the outcome of this case, if he indeed is put to death, is predicated on the fact that the victim, John Luttig, the man who was killed in part of that car jacking, was a prominent businessman in Tyler and that he is the father of a federal judge? A federal judge that also has ties to three of the Supreme Court justices of the United States.

SKEEN: It doesn't have any effect on it whatsoever, because it's the facts of the case that were presented to the jury that the jury decided the case on, both at the guilt phase of the trial and also down at the punishment phase of the trial.

And as far as this age issue, which has been continually discussed -- I mean, that issue was taken up and specifically discussed by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas when the case went into that court, and you know, the judge made very clear when he wrote the opinion that the international treaty that has been referred to did not at all in any way whatsoever bar the rights of the state to set the age at which an individual could be executed.

WHITFIELD: So in your view, this fight is over?

SKEEN: Well, in my view, certainly from the standpoint of the defendant being 17, 18 years of age at the time he committed that crime, that is not and should not in any way whatsoever have any effect on him being executed.

What the decision should be made on is the facts of the crime, the jury's verdict. And in Texas, at 17 years of age an individual can be executed, and in fact the United States Supreme Court has ruled that an individual who is 16 years of age can be executed, and there's nothing in any of these international treaties -- and the right was specifically reserved by the Senate, which negates those claims, because the Senate expressly reserved the rights of the individual states to execute those under the age of 18 who commit capital crimes.

WHITFIELD: All right. Mr. Skeen, let me bring in Mr. Long one more time. So you only have three more days in which to hope for some sort of a positive decision coming from the Board of Paroles and Pardons. Governor Perry has not issued a stay in the past 11 some executions. So what makes you think that you stand a pretty good chance this time?

LONG: Well, I feel like I need to address some of the things that Mr. Skeen said, first. And one thing is that Napoleon takes full credit for what happened at the crime. But all of the stuff that he just cited in the Court of Criminal Appeals direct appeal opinion is embellishment on the offense that the Coleman brothers gave in their testimony, and virtually everything that he mentioned there they've recanted, with regard to Napoleon's state of mind before the crime, you know, that it was a predatory hunt-down, that he intended to go out and kill somebody that day, they've recanted. And they've also recanted (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

WHITFIELD: So you still feel strongly that he did not get a fair trial?

LONG: Yes, we have argued that he didn't get a fair trial because they had an implied deal with the state in return for their testimony. The state wouldn't seek the death penalty against them. They have said that that's the case now. They also have recanted all this testimony. We had a couple of jurors who we believe were biased. We had a juror who told an investigator after the offense...

SKEEN: Can I respond to that?

WHITFIELD: All right, real quick, we have about 10 seconds left.

SKEEN: Just this deal about the Colemans' recantations. The Colemans' alleged recantations came years later. The Colemans were both prosecuted and convicted of capital murder, and they got life sentences in state court and they won't be eligible for parole for 40 years, and that was stacked on 40-year federal sentences that they got. The Colemans, each have to serve over 70 years day per day in confinement. There were no agreements by the Colemans. They're off in a prison now making these alleged recantations.

And I'll say this specifically on statements that it's obvious the defense needs to get some recantation to change what they feel like they can argue on behalf of the defendant.

WHITFIELD: All right. Jack Skeen, I'm going to have to make that be the last world. Walter Long, Beazley's attorney, and the prosecutor, Mr. Skeen, thank you both for joining us.

SKEEN: Thank you, ma'am.

WHITFIELD: So you have got about three more days in which the Board of Pardons and Paroles may make a decision or may not. Otherwise, a scheduled execution now for Napoleon Beazley for Tuesday. All right. Thanks very much.

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