At Long Last, Sir, a Sense of Decency
Bob Herbert defends a murderer in the name of the race card.

By R. Ted Cruz. Mr. Cruz is an attorney in Washington, D.C., and a former law clerk to Judge J. Michael Luttig.
August 15, 2001 8:10 a.m.

political agenda is a dangerous thing. It can lead one to cross lines that shouldn't be crossed, to descend to places one shouldn't go. In the case of Bob Herbert's August 2 and August 6 editorials in the New York Times, the temptation was a three-fer: (1) an opportunity to continue a longstanding crusade against the death penalty, plus (2) a chance to yet again attack criminal justice in (coincidentally, President Bush's) Texas, and (3) an opening to take a pot-shot at a prominent and rising conservative judge, Judge J. Michael Luttig. Perhaps, for Mr. Herbert, it was just irresistible.

His mission clear, Mr. Herbert proceeded to lionize one Napoleon Beazley, a convicted murderer scheduled to be executed today for the car jacking and murder of Judge Luttig's father. Beazley is a cold-blooded predator. His crime, which Mr. Herbert gracefully concedes was "bad enough," was to follow John Luttig to his home and shoot him dead as he exited his car, and to steal that car for a one-block joyride. John Luttig's wife, Bobbie, who watched her husband die, survived only because she feigned death and rolled under the car, while Beazley drove over her. Beazley's stated reason for the entire evening: He wanted "to see what it's like to kill somebody."

For this conduct, Beazley was sentenced to death, a fact Mr. Herbert deems a "Texas Travesty." To be sure, he recounts a couple of alleged racist statements by jurors or jurors' families — sentiments which have utterly no place in a court of law or any decent society, and which Mr. Herbert rightly decries — but Mr. Herbert presents nothing to undermine the underlying guilt of Beazley (which Beazley himself admits and nobody really questions). Indeed, he instead attempts to explain away Beazley's malice, beginning one column with the following characterization: "Mr. Beazley and two accomplices were hijacking a Mercedes-Benz from a couple in Tyler, Tex., when — in an apparent panic— Mr. Beazley opened fire with a .45 caliber pistol . . . ."

Mr. Herbert's agenda is clear, as the italicized phrase illustrates; nothing in the record supports any "panic," apparent or otherwise. As the federal court of appeals recounted, Beazley told his friends he wanted to kill somebody, he followed the Luttigs in their car for several miles, he observed to his friends that he was "going to have to shoot [the] driver," he followed them into their garage, and he threw 63-year-old John Luttig to the ground, shot him once in the side of the head, ran around the car to fire at Bobbie Luttig, and then returned to fire another bullet at close range into John Luttig's head.

The only possible conduct to prompt Mr. Herbert's hypothesized "panic," was Luttig's opening the car door to get out, surely not a surprising conduct after parking in one's own garage. (Mr. Herbert also includes the gratuitous reference to the make of the car, a Mercedes-Benz (presumably because that makes the murder less blameworthy), without mentioning that the car was also ten years old.)

If Mr. Herbert's columns were merely an apology for a vicious murderer, they would not be exceptional, in his body of work or on the pages of the Times. But Mr. Herbert goes on to attack Michael Luttig — the son of the murdered victim — because he dared to assist the prosecution in the case. Nationwide, 32 states have passed Victims' Rights Amendments, and a federal amendment has wide bipartisan support, yet Mr. Herbert finds it objectionable that here the victim's family had the temerity to believe it should have a role in the trial. Michael Luttig loved his father, and cared about the trial of his murderer. The fact that he's a federal judge, on another court, in another state, should not make a difference.

In the trial of Beazley's two accomplices, Luttig gave a victim impact statement, a description of what the crime had meant for him and his family. The American Lawyer magazine reprinted that statement in March 1995, and I challenge Mr. Herbert or anyone else to read that statement and then assert that Michael Luttig should have remained silent. When I first read the statement, I wept; never have I encountered a more eloquent or powerful testament to the horrible and very real consequences of the taking of a life or to the love a son has for his father.

His statement was simple. A few excerpts:

[I am here] 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. . . .

Words seem trite in describing what follows when your husband is murdered in your presence, when your father is stripped from your life. . . .

. . . it's being frightened out of your mind in the middle of the night by a frantic banging on your door . . . one of your best friends . . . tells you: 'Your mom just called. Father was just murdered in the driveway of your home.' . . .

. . . 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 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." . . .

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

. . . 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. . . .

. . . its 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 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."

When we were children our mothers all told us never to speak ill of the dead. Surely that is true all the more so for the grieving family of the murdered. To be sure, we all have political axes to grind, and Mr. Herbert no doubt feels strongly about his, but that's no reason to forget our "sense of decency," as Joseph Welch famously put it, and go after the loved ones of those who met an untimely and violent death.