Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Debate Over Execution of Texas Inmate Continues

Aired August 14, 2001 - 11:17   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have one of those weird twists of fate this morning, because we were all set to talk about Napoleon Beazley, who is set to be put to death tomorrow in Texas. He's going to be the 12th inmate that Texas has executed this year. And this case has been very controversial.

And yet in the midst of getting ready to have that discussion, we actually ended up having a live save, as I understand it, in the studio in Austin, Texas. I wanted to get right to this story.

As a matter of fact, we're being joined now by Chuck Rosenthal, who is the district attorney in Harris County, Texas. He's on one side of the debate about what should happen to Napoleon Beazley. And joining us from Austin is Keith Hampton. He's with the Texas Defense Lawyers Association.

And Mr. Hampton, I've got to start with you because I'm just hearing word that you had a little bit of an emergency there in the studio. Is this true?

KEITH HAMPTON, TEXAS DEFENSE LAWYERS ASSOCIATION: It sure is. But it looks like she's going to be OK. I now know that she was, she's a diabetic and went into a seizure. But none of us knew that. But she's OK now. The ambulance is here and she's being taken care of.

HARRIS: And she's OK because you gave her CPR, correct?

HAMPTON: Well, I didn't give her CPR. CPR was applied and I went and got the ambulance and we came out and she's OK.

HARRIS: Well, we sure are glad we had you as a guest in the studio this morning. I'm sure she is, too. Now, we hope she is doing well. It's almost a shame to have to move on and talk about something else this morning, but let's talk about this Napoleon Beazley case. It has generated so much controversy.

Let's, first of all, talk about the fact that the age of the defendant in this case, he was 17 when he committed this crime. His defense attorneys are saying that this is never, usually, any minor, and minors are not executed for crimes of this particular nature.

But beginning with you Mr. Rosenthal, is that the case? Is it true that in Texas there have not been executions of minors, of those who have committed crimes, rather, as minors?

CHUCK ROSENTHAL, HARRIS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: I don't know if there's been executions on those folks or not.

HARRIS: OK. How about you, Mr. Hampton? Do you know about that?

HAMPTON: I don't think there, that we have. I think generally we recognize that a 17-year-old or a teenager is, because of the circumstance of his age, that that's a factor that militates against seeking the death penalty. And in Beazley's case, it appears that, as in so many other capital cases, that the death penalty was sought in his case because of the status of the victim rather than the circumstances of the offense.

HARRIS: And that is a case that Beazley's defense attorneys are making right now because in addition to this age factor they're also citing the fact that the victim's son is a prominent and very well connected judge who may have had some influence in this case. Mr. Rosenthal, you don't have a problem at all with that particular element?

ROSENTHAL: No. You'd have to ask the folks in Smith County about that. I don't know anything about it at all.

HARRIS: You don't know about that case, about Mr., about Judge Luttig as actually having any influence at all on this case with Mr. Beazley?

ROSENTHAL: Well, I know Jack Skeen and I don't think Jack would permit that. He's the district attorney up there.

HARRIS: How about you, Mr. Hampton? Are you familiar with that?

HAMPTON: I'm not. I'm not part of the -- I know the defense lawyer for Mr. Beazley, who has emphasized that and urged that in his briefs and he's an excellent attorney and I believe he has found a connection of influence.

HARRIS: Do you think it is an incorrect or an egregious effect of influence in this case?

HAMPTON: It's hard for me to tell. I mean I would have to see the exact level of involvement of the victim's father and his friends into the case. But quite frankly, it wouldn't take a whole lot. And when you've got a federal judge urging a state judge or talking to him in even the least bit, the influence or the statement is there, I mean one judge talking to another.

HARRIS: Well, as a district attorney there, even if you are in Harris County, I want to ask you, Mr. Rosenthal, what you think about that this, an accumulation of all the other stories that have been in the press recently about the Texas justice system, also going back to the case of Calvin Burdine, which we also reported on this morning, a case where a man who was on death row and came very close to being executed even though his lawyer slept through most of his trial and the judge actually even recognized it in the case and it went to appeal and was denied on appeal.

These kinds of stories, you're not concerned at all about the light this casts on the Texas justice system?

ROSENTHAL: No. I think, you know, one of the things that's happening in Texas since I've been practicing, and I've been an assistant D.A. and a district attorney for 25 years, and I think we've learned a lot. I think judges in Texas have been, become more sophisticated about the people that they appoint on these cases and I'm not concerned at all.

Mr. Burdine is a Harris County case and if the decision stands, we'll be making preparations to retry him.

HARRIS: All right, let me ask you again, though, getting back to -- I want to ask you specifically about the Beazley case, but I want to get back to this thing about the age and about minors actually being given the death penalty there. Would you pursue that as a district attorney? Under what circumstances would you have to see in a case in order for you to think that was appropriate?

ROSENTHAL: Well, in fact, I've done that. I tried a fellow a couple of years ago who was 17 when he killed a deputy constable. In that particular case what we looked at was we looked at the evidence that we felt the jury would evaluate in determining whether or not he would be a continuing threat to society and whether or not his age did, in fact, militate against the death penalty. In the case that I tried, the jury found that he was a continuing threat based on a number of crimes he had committed other than this crime and felt that his age did not militate against the death penalty and so they gave him the death penalty.

HARRIS: How about in the case, and, again, this is -- I won't say specifically the Beazley case, but in a case like this where he never had a, there was no prior record and they say that the future dangerousness would be awfully hard to prove since he had never committed any other crime.

ROSENTHAL: Well, I don't know. You know, I've tried people who have been first offenders, too, and gotten the death penalty. It very much depends on the crime. I think in the jury's mind it very much depends on the crime. It depends on how the person reacted to having committed the crime, whether they showed any remorse, all sorts of things that go into that determination.

So I can see a jury making that determination on a first offender.

HARRIS: Keith Hampton, how about you? What do you think this says about the system or about the people?

HAMPTON: Well, the juries don't have to pass on life and death unless and until the district attorney's office seeks the death penalty. The real issue is the prosecutorial discretion as to when they do and do not seek the death penalty and in the case of Mr. Beazley, with someone with no record, a first time offender, I don't know why a D.A.'s office would seek the death penalty for a first time offender.

And under our present laws, a life sentence in this state means 40 actual years before your paperwork is even reviewed by a parole board and even then it, a full board or two thirds of the board's got to vote for your release. The likelihood of that ever happening is extremely low. In fact, to date it hasn't happened. So why not waive the death penalty in those kinds of cases, get a life sentence and he's certainly not a future danger to society since he is most likely to die in prison.

HARRIS: And we're going to have to leave it there, gentlemen. But we sure do thank you very much for coming. Chuck Rosenthal there in Harris County, thank you very much. And Keith Hampton, thank you very, very much for coming in there in Austin and for stepping in there and helping out and maybe saving a life there in the studio this morning. We definitely thank you for coming in.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com