CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
This Was No Tie
The Supreme Court was right to uphold Napoleon Beazley's death sentence.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to stay the execution of Napoleon Beazley, a 25-year-old Texas inmate who, in 1994, shot a 63-year-old man execution-style during a carjacking. The court's decision wasn't surprising from a legal standpoint: Beazley's case had been appropriately reviewed by the Texas state courts and lower federal courts. Moreover, his petition dealt with issues that had repeatedly been decided against capital defendants in Supreme Court and lower-court cases.
Yet the case has engendered controversy--at least among avid death-penalty opponents. This is partly because the murderer, at the time of the crime, was three months shy of his 18th birthday. It is also because the victim was the father of a sitting federal judge, which caused three Supreme Court justices to recuse themselves from the case. As a result, the vote to deny Beazley a stay of execution was 3-3 on a six-member court.
This fact moved George Kendall, head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, to a nifty sports metaphor: "A tie shouldn't go to the executioner." In fact, the metaphor is completely inapt, the recusals were entirely appropriate, and Beazley has received the full judicial process to which he is entitled.
Second, the recusals in this case were entirely proper and perhaps even compelled by federal law. A federal statute requires a judge to "disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." Recusal is also required "where [a judge] has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding." The victim in the Beazley case was the father of a prominent federal judge, J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Judge Luttig, while serving in the Justice Department in 1991, assisted Justice Clarence Thomas in his Senate confirmation process. Presumably, Justice Thomas concluded that this connection might create an appearance of partiality. Because Judge Luttig had also assisted Justice David Souter in his Senate confirmation, Justice Souter also recused himself. Justice Antonin Scalia declined to participate in the case, probably because Judge Luttig once served as his law clerk and the two have remained personal friends.
These recusals were entirely appropriate, both to preserve the appearance of impartiality and to avoid justices sitting on a case where personal bias might play a covert role. One can only imagine the hue and cry, in the very circles now criticizing the court, if the three justices had voted on a case concerning the murder of an acquaintance's father.
A majority vote is required to stay an execution; with the recusals, Beazley needed four votes. It's important to note that the recusals included two generally conservative justices and one justice from the more liberal camp. This meant that, as with any other capital petitioner facing the court, Beazley still needed to convince one of the court's "swing votes," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor or Justice Anthony Kennedy, that his case was meritorious and worthy of review. That he did not succeed in this endeavor does not suggest any miscarriage of justice.
Finally, Beazley did not present the court (however composed) with any issues worthy of review. More than 12 years ago, the Supreme Court decided that anyone over the age of 16 could be held to answer for a capital crime. As Justice Scalia noted in that case, one need not be eligible to vote or to drive a car in order to grasp the fact that "murdering another human being is profoundly wrong."
Similarly, Beazley's argument that international treaties can pre-empt state laws on the issue of the death penalty has been repeatedly rejected by the federal courts. Beazley also argued that the Texas death-penalty statute did not allow the jury to take cognizance of his evidence of "good character." Yet the Texas law required the jury to find that Beazley posed a continuing threat to society and to further find that, taking into account all the evidence, including Beazley's "character and background," the death penalty was appropriate. None of Beazley's claims raised novel or important issues worthy of review by the Supreme Court and none engendered any question as to his guilt or sentence.
Mr. McBride, a partner at a Washington law firm, is a former law clerk to Justice O'Connor and a former federal prosecutor. He worked with Judge Luttig in the Department of Justice from 1989 to 1991.
