CHAPTER THREE: HOW MANY WOMEN DID HE EXECUTE?

 

           

            Governor George W. Bush executed two women as Governor of Texas, Betty Lou Beets and Karla Faye Tucker. Although both women were clearly guilty, both executions were controversial.

            The executed great-grandmother. Betty Lou Beets, 62, may very well be the only great-grandmother executed in the history of the nation. Having grown up in a home with an alcoholic, abusive father, she tended to seek out the companionship of alcoholic, abusive men. Then, apparently, she would shoot them, some say in self-defense, others say in cold blood or for money. She was convicted of shooting and wounding her second husband, Bill Lane. The bodies of her fourth and fifth husbands, Doyle Barker and Jimmy Don Beets, were found in shallow graves in her backyard, both shot in the back of the head and stuffed into blue sleeping bags.[1]

            So why did this aged offender cause such a controversy? Precisely because the murders were linked to domestic violence, a social ill that Gov. Bush had vowed to fight: “Texas must act to send the message to people who feel like abusing their spouse is their right, that we won’t accept it in our society. It just reinforces that criminal behavior is OK, that beating up your wife is OK, that violence is an acceptable way of life,” gubernatorial candidate Bush stated in 1994.

            Problematically, Betty Lou Beets was a long-term victim of domestic violence, much of which was overlooked by local authorities. Expert testimony in post-trial proceedings established her to have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Battered Wives Syndrome, and brain damage. “Texas failed to protect Betty Lou Beets when she was being beaten by an abusive spouse,” wrote Juley Fulcher, Policy Director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. “It would be a terrible miscarriage of justice if Texas executes this battered woman without hearing her story.”[2]

            That’s the first reason Betty Lou Beets’ execution was controversial. The second is a bit more complicated, and had to do with her legal representation in court.

            Betty Lou Beets’ attorney was E. Ray Andrews. She went to him for help in settling a fire claim one year after the death of Jimmy Don Beets. E. Ray Andrews realized that Ms. Beets could collect death benefits as a result of that death, and agreed to file the papers for her. Later, after the body of Jimmy Don Beets was discovered, the state decided to seek the death penalty against Ms. Beets. Because she had been a victim of domestic violence, the state might have difficulty proving that she had not acted in self-defense or in response to that violence, which would earn her a lesser sentence. So the state argued that Ms. Beets had killed Mr. Beets in order to collect his death benefits.

            Unfortunately for the state’s case, Ms. Beets hadn’t even filed for death benefits until a year after Mr. Beets was killed, and then only after E. Ray Andrews had suggested that she do so. Severe ethical problems arose when E. Ray Andrews agreed to represent Ms. Beets in her 1985 capital trial in exchange for the movie and book rights to her life story. This situation created a dilemma: on the one hand, it was E. Ray Andrews who was needed to testify that Ms. Beets had not killed her husband in order to secure death benefits. On the other hand, he couldn’t testify in a trial which he was lawyering.

            Ethically, E. Ray Andrews had a responsibility to remove himself from the case and testify on Ms. Beets’ behalf. But if he did that, he would lose the movie and book rights to her life story. So, E. Ray Andrews just went on lawyering for her, securing his financial reward and her death sentence.[3]

            This unprofessionalism was not uncharacteristic of him. Mr. Andrews’ associates stated that at the time of Ms. Beets’ trial, he was drinking between one half and three-quarters of a bottle of whiskey every night and two or three doubles [at lunch] before he had to go back to court.[4] Later, Andrews was arrested by the FBI in 1994 for soliciting a $300,000 payoff to drop a death penalty case against a businessman accused of killing his wife. He resigned from the prosecutor’s office, gave up his law license, then cried at his sentencing, admitting that he was a longtime alcoholic, prescription drug abuser and heavy gambler.[5]

            But no matter. In the end, Ms. Beets was destined for death row. “After careful review of the evidence of the case, I concur with the jury that Betty Lou Beets is guilty of this murder,” Gov. Bush said in a written statement. “I’m confident the courts, both state and federal, have thoroughly reviewed all the issues raised by the defendant.”[6] Governor George W. Bush denied any reprieve, and Betty Lou Beets was executed February 24, 2000.

            A good Christian woman. Probably the most controversial execution during the governorship of George W. Bush was that of Karla Faye Tucker, the first woman executed by the state of Texas since 1863.[7] The controversy was intensified by the brutality of the murder, the indisputability of her guilt, and the thoroughness of her reformation.

            On June 13, 1983 Karla Faye Tucker and her boyfriend, Daniel Garrett entered the apartment of Jerry Lynn Dean in order to “case it out” and see if they might be able to steal his motorcycle later. Mr. Dean was not supposed to be home, so his presence in the house, with a woman he had met at a party, came to Ms. Tucker and Mr. Garrett’s surprise. Mr. Garrett responded by beating Mr. Dean repeatedly with a hammer. When the man started to gurgle, Ms. Tucker grabbed a three-foot-long pickax and plunged it into Mr. Dean’s body several times.[8] The woman, Deborah Thornton, was cowering under the sheets when Ms. Tucker murdered her with the pickax as well, in order to eliminate any witness to the crimes. She later told friends that each swing of the ax had given her a sexual thrill.[9]

            So why did Karla Faye Tucker’s execution cause such a controversy for the staunchly pro-death penalty Governor in the staunchly pro-death penalty state? Simply because it was so evident that she had fully reformed while on death row.

            Ms. Tucker had been raised by a mother who introduced her to prostitution and drugs at the age of 14. By the time of the murders she was a professional call girl and drug addict. So it was to many people’s surprise when she became a born again Christian only a few months into her prison term, going on to marry her chaplain and work as a lay minister to other women in the prison. Some folks thought that maybe she was faking it to gain sympathy, but her constant kindness and devotion over the next thirteen years convinced all but a few doubters. By the time she actually came up for execution hardly anyone doubted the sincerity and depth of her faith, even among those who support capital punishment. Rev. Jerry Falwell said, “I just knew instantly that girl had been touched by the Lord and ought to be spared.”[10] For similar reasons, Pope John Paul II and Rev. Pat Robertson both asked for clemency for Ms. Tucker, as well as thousands of others who called or wrote the Governor, suggesting that she be allowed to live.

            And that’s all she was asking, really. Ms. Tucker accepted full responsibility for her actions, but asked only that her sentence be commuted to life in prison without parole so that she could continue her prison ministry and her relationship with her husband. She wrote to Gov. Bush and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, “It obviously was a very, very horrible [crime] and I do take full responsibility for what happened the night of June 13, 1983 . . . I also know that justice and law demand my life for the two innocent lives I brutally murdered that night . . . My change, my transformation and rehabilitation was never meant to manipulate anything or anyone . . . Allow me, through this change, to help others make better choices and to change for the better also. I am truly sorry for what I did. I will never harm another person again in my life, not even trying to protect myself. I pray God will help you believe all that I have shared and will help you decide to commute my sentence to life in prison.”[11]

            Outwardly, Gov. Bush appeared to handle this crisis with great solemnity. “Of the many thousands of decisions a chief executive makes, capital punishment decisions are by far the most profound,” he writes in his autobiography, A Charge to Keep.[12] He also noted how much Ms. Tucker’s interview with CNN’s Larry King had affected him,[13] and wrote of how Ms. Tucker’s plight gave the death penalty a human face: “Karla Faye Tucker put a face on the death penalty, for me and for much of the nation and world. Hers was a pleasant face, a smiling face, a sympathetic face. At five three and 120 pounds, with wavy brown hair and large, expressive eyes, Karla Faye Tucker did not fit the public image of a typical death row inmate.”[14]

            No one is sure why Ms. Tucker’s appearance, especially her height and weight and hair color, had so much to do with the sympathy she merited. One also wonders if an African-American male who had converted to Christianity would have received such a warm description. And it isn’t exactly clear how none of the 59 people Gov. Bush had already executed had been able to give the death penalty a human face for him.

            But Gov. Bush’s sincerity was called into question by Tucker Carlson, a conservative political columnist for Talk magazine and current conservative commentator for CNN News. Feeling like he was in the company of a sympathetic mind, Gov. Bush let his guard down in an interview regarding Karla Faye Tucker’s execution. Mr. Carlson writes:

Bush's brand of forthright tough-guy populism can be appealing, and it has played well in Texas. Yet occasionally there are flashes of meanness visible beneath it. While driving back from the speech later that day, Bush mentions Karla Faye Tucker, a double murderer who was executed in Texas last year. In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. 'Did you meet with any of them?' I ask. Bush whips around and stares at me. 'No, I didn't meet with any of them,' he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. 'I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' 'What was her answer?' I wonder. 'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.' I must look shocked -- ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel, even for someone as militantly anticrime as Bush -- because he immediately stops smirking. 'It's tough stuff,' Bush says, suddenly somber, 'but my job is to enforce the law.' As it turns out, the Larry King-Karla Faye Tucker exchange Bush recounted never took place, at least not on television. During her interview with King, however, Tucker did imply that Bush was succumbing to election-year pressure from pro-death penalty voters. Apparently Bush never forgot it. He has a long memory for slights.[15]

Gov. Bush’s staff went on to deny that this exchange had ever taken place, although none of them were present at the interview, and none could supply a motive for Mr. Carlson’s alleged deception.

            In 1991, Governor Doug Wilder of Virginia commuted the death sentence of Joe Giarratano because of his "rehabilitation, salvation and kindness to strangers". In 1997, Governor Allen of Virginia (now one of the most conservative Senators in the U.S. Senate) commuted the death sentence of William Ira Saunders purely on the basis of his rehabilitation; both Georgia and Montana have previously commuted death sentences on the same grounds.[16]

            But no such mercy was forthcoming for Karla Faye Tucker. Governor George W. Bush of Texas, after much prayer, decided to leave judgment on Ms. Tucker’s “heart and soul” to a “higher authority.” She was executed 33 minutes later on February 3, 1998.[17] “I am going to be face to face with Jesus now,” she said in her final words. “I will see you all when you get there. I will wait for you.” Her veins were flooded first with sodium thiopental to knock her unconscious, then with pancuronium bromide, a strong muscle relaxant that caused her diaphragm to collapse, and finally a dose of potassium chloride which stopped her heart.[18] When the announcement of her death came, a hearty cheer rose from the waiting throng of death penalty supporters outside the penitentiary.