INTERVIEWER: Say your name and spell it.

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: James Lee Beathard. B-E-A-T-H-A-R-D.

INTERVIEWER: Lee is with 2 e’s?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: Yes sir. J-A-M-E-S. L-E-E. B-E-A-T-H-A-R-D.

INTERVIEWER: How long have you been on death row?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: Close to 15 years.

INTERVIEWER: What has it been like?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: I mean, I, you know, in the short, short explanations, its been kind of hell. I mean, there’s no way you can describe being in prison, especially on death row, any other way other than saying it’s a man made hell. No doubt about that.

INTERVIEWER: Do that again.

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: Short answer is that its been hell. Any prison time is hell. Death row is just a different depth of hell. Different circle of hell.

INTERVIEWER: Why are you here?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: I was accused in a 1984 triple homicide. Supposedly for remuneration, for insurance collection. Involved with a (ball partner?), co-defendant of mine.

INTERVIEWER: Describe the crime.

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: (Well?), I’d really rather not get in to long details in it right now, but the short story is that a friend of mine was supposed to have killed his father, step mother and half brother to collect the insurance money. That’s what we were charged with. In reality, it was a, he had a long term, standing feud with his father and it just escalated to a, a real nasty point.

INTERVIEWER: You contend that you were not part of the actual murders.

15:02:43 JAMES LEE BEATHARD: I wasn't. I wasn’t. This is Texas and that’s really not relevant, according to the courts.

INTERVIEWER: Did you perpetrate the murder?

15:02:55 JAMES LEE BEATHARD: No I didn’t, no I didn’t. And mater of fact the, the co-defendant in 1986, matter of fact after, as soon as he got down here, went to the press and the courts and explained to them that he had lied at my trial. He had testified against me at my trial. And explained that he had lied in hopes of making a deal with the prosecutor in order to avoid a death penalty for himself. The prosecutor reneged on the deal, verbal agreement they had made with him. And he has since tried to straighten it out and clean it up. Unfortunately the court system in Texas doesn’t take recantations, and they don’t give them any weight at all, as a matter of fact.

INTERVIEWER: Did you perpetrate the murder that you're accused of?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: No, I didn’t. I didn’t. I can’t remember where I was at with that (wall ago?). But I didn’t. I have a codefendant in my case who testified against me at my trial. He admitted the day that his trial was over with that he lied at my trial, and had had a verbal agreement with the prosecutor to testify against me, implicating me in the crimes in exchange for a life sentence. The prosecutor had reneged on that verbal agreement. and since then my codefendant has done everything he can legally and media wise to try to correct what happened. Texas doesn’t give any weight to recantations from codefendants or anybody else for that matter. So I’m still here. And technically they have, you know, ways that they can go ahead and maintain the conviction.

INTERVIEWER: Where were you when the crime was being committed?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: I was nearby the crime scene. Its, you know, we can get in to 2 hours trying to go into details of what happened, and that’s really not relevant at this point.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think the death penalty deters crime?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: Of course not… Murders in this country have fluctuated since the reimposition of the death penalty in the mid 70s. But they're, the numbers, the statistics have never matched the execution rates in any way. If anything, they match economic changes. If you want to predict whether or not a murder rate’s gonna go up or down, look at the economic indicators. And that you, that’s usually a much more accurate indication of what you can expect on murders in the coming year.They could double the number of people being killed. They could stop the death penalty completely. And the murder rate won’t change one bit. You have to understand, anybody that commits a murder, especially capital murder, their mindset at that time is not such that they're going to consider the consequences. Somebody who might think they can get over on the system, they think they can get over no matter if there's a death penalty or not. Most crimes aren’t like that. Most crimes are simply a heated moment crime of passion. A survival situation if you will even. I’m not justifying a lot of them. But, a man who’d robbing a minute mart of a 7 eleven or what ever, usually has no intention of killing anybody. Some of them do. And the death penalty’s not gonna stop them. But the ones that don’t, they just want to get the money and leave. Shoot out comes down, of course they're gonna defend themselves. He didn’t think well, gee there’s a death penalty, I’ll go ahead and get shot. I mean, they just don’t think that way. I mean, you have to, you have to think a little bit on why a murder occurs. and then try to link that in as far as deterrence goes. You know, the average Joe Blow out there things, well, you know, I’m not gonna commit a crime because I might get a death penalty. Well he’s not gonna commit a crime anyway. I mean, most people out there in society, they're not committing murders, not because they're afraid of the law, not because they're afraid of the death penalty. They're not committing murders because of internal morals and ethics. Pure and simple. You can’t scare people into… obeying or following rules like that. If your mind set, if your paradigm of the world is such that the only way you control people is through fear, well you've got a really negative view of the world out there, and I don't think you understand the average person.

INTERVIEWER: How do you respond to people who people who say that of course you're gonna say you don’t deserve to die?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: I don't think I can. I mean, I’m not even gonna try. I, I guess the one thing I’d like people to think about out there, no matter what I’m accused of, no matter what bad feelings they, they may have about me or what ever evil they may wish upon me, they have to understand that when they, when they execute me, my punishment’s over. I mean, the worst part of my punishment is the 15 years I’ve spent down here in this place. That’s the worst part of my punishment. When they execute me, they pretty much stop my punishment. The people they're punishing the most after my execution is my family. My wife, my mother, my daughter, my brother and my family. They're the ones that are gonna have to live on after that. One would think that the, the victims of the families out there, who suffer great losses. I mean, you can never over state just how much suffering and loss these people have gone through. You'd think they'd be the last ones who’d want to see another family suffer. You know, justly with the death penalty or not, you'd think they just wouldn’t want to put another family through that. And, yet they seem to be the ones who are clamoring the most to see that happen.Its as if they want to punish my family for what I’ve been accused of. More than they want to punish me. Its as if they, they have a mind set and they haven’t stated it, but, but you get the impression that they're mind set is that, if they can get enough other people to suffer like they have, some how or another, their suffering will be lessened. And it won’t. You know. You can execute me and everybody down here. Tomorrow, and the next day all the victim’s families will wake up and their lived ones will still be gone. They'll still miss them.

INTERVIEWER: If your family was killed, would you want to see the killer executed?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: On a gut level response, I’d want to take him and choke him with my own bare hands. I think that’s a human response, and it’s a valid response, as a gut feeling. But just because you feel that way internally doesn’t mean you should give wider action to that. I mean, we’re above that, supposedly. On a moral and ethical level, no I wouldn’t want to see them executed. I mean, it wouldn’t do me any good. It wouldn’t bring my family back. And while I may think if for a little while, that this will give me some kind of peace of mind, I guarantee 6 months after that, I won’t have any peace of mind. I won’t care if that one person’s dead. The only thing I’ll still care about is the person that I lost is still gone, or still hurt. And that’ll never change. Truth is I don’t trust the court system to carry through, you know, accurately. I, I think they have way too many errors for me or anybody else to trust them with killing somebody on my behalf.

INTERVIEWER: Who gets the death penalty? How many millionaires are in there?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: (CHUCKLES) There’s no millionaires in here. We’ve had probably 5 people who came from families with money. Probably about a quarter, maybe a third of the guys down here come from firmly middle class backgrounds. Maybe lower middle class. But the vast majority of people down here are from lower economic rungs. Its just that simple. I mean, and there’s 2 reasons behind that. One is that the courts just aren’t real inclined to go after somebody who comes from a good family. And those people are gonna be able to hire good legal representation, too. And second… poverty brings crime. Crime breeds murder, brings capital murder. And, that’s where its gonna happen at. You want to, you want to look at, at the demographics on where the death penalty is, or who commits capital murders, its gonna be people from the lower socio-economic status. And, that, that in turn gives (breed?) to some really worrisome trends. For instance, when I first, when I got here, probably 25 or 30 percent of the men here were minority. Blacks and a few others. Now, over 50 percent of the people here are minority and it may be now that African Americans are carrying over 50 percent of death row. That’s a radical change since I’ve been here. And when you consider, and compare it to the, the population in general, that’s way over representat-, it’s a huge over representation of African Americans in here. Now you're left with one or two conclusions. Either one the system is biased and unfair, or two, you can, I guess (CHUCKLES) you could claim that African Americans are more genetically predisposed for violent crimes. I don’t buy that for a second and I’d love to see a politician have the guts to get up there and say that and ruin his career. Cause the only explanation left is there’s an economic problem here. And where minorities in this, in this country are left in a really bad position, there are going to be. Now the solution for crime there is suggested that you change the economic situation. Unfortunately that takes money and it takes will power. It takes incentive, it takes some kind of moral drive. And they don’t have that in government in this country. Its much easier to ignore that and just come down hard with a (fist?), with an iron fist and say, well we’re fixing your problem. We’re killing more people and we’re building more prisons. Give you a false sense of security. Nothing’s changing.

INTERVIEWER: What went through your mind when he judge sentenced you to death?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: I think anybody, anybody here, and I don’t; mean to speak for everybody, I can’t do that. But when, when they read your death sentence, when the judge reads that, that document that says you've been sentenced to death, I think everybody is numbed. Even if you're expecting it. You know, just hearing those words, its something that you just can’t imagine. You can’t picture. I don't think there’s words that I could give you that would describe it. For me, just a real incongruous thought went through my mind was well, ain’t this a bitch.But that doesn’t describe what was in my heart. At that time I’m, I was expecting it. But at the same, time, as soon as he said the words, its just like my entire world crumbled, and in my mind I could see my family just, shrinking and getting further and further away. I had seen everything that meant anything to me was just evaporated right then and there.

INTERVIEWER: Did you expect that sentence?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: Yeah, yeah, I mean… I knew where I was from. I knew the county, I knew what the system was like… And I knew when the jury walked in, the first day of trial, they really didn’t give a damn one way or the other. I mean, they were there to convict, period. I think most juries in Texas are. You know, if somebody gets selected to a jury, they'll get up there and say no, I don’t have a bias. But if you ask them in an unguarded moment what’s this trial for, they will say, oh, we’re here to have a trial for that man who killed those people. They don’t say, and they sure don’t think in a paradigm, well, we’re here to have a trial and see if this is the man who killed these people. They're, in the back of their mind is, he did it. And the entire process for a defense attorney is trying to over come that assumption. And its impossible in Texas, nearly.

INTERVIEWER: Do you deserve to die?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: No, I don’t. (SIMULTANEOUS CONVERSATION) I mean, I can say that and that doesn’t carry any value with anybody out there. I can say I, I don’t deserve to die because I’m innocent. Nobody’s gonna believe it. And frankly, at this point, I don’t give a damn anymore if anybody believes it, cause it, it doesn’t matter. And, and I don’t say I’m less deserving of death because I didn’t do it versus these other guys here. Because the corollary to that is that other people here do deserve to die. And in fact nobody deserves to die. The courts and the trial system, what, the outcome a your trial isn’t really contingent on whether you're guilty or innocent. Whether you're executed isn't really contingent on whether you're guilty or innocent. Nobody out there cares, and quite frankly at this point, I don’t care any more either. I, I don’t care who’s guilty in here. If they get out. I, I do sort a care about the people who are innocent, to get out. But on a big level, its like well, what the hell, I can’t do anything about it. I’ve had too many friends who were innocent down here who have been executed. And, you know, that’s just part of the, the system now.

INTERVIEWER: Are you appealing your sentence?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: I am. I am.

INTERVIEWER: Then you do care.

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: Oh sure, I’d like, I’d like to, to win my freedom. But that’s such a remote possibility that I don’t even think those, in those terms any more. I really don’t. I wish I did, I guess that’s a loss of hope, but, you know uh, I don't know, after 15 years in here and, nearly 180 people that I’ve know have been executed, its like hope’s kind of a big, it’s a str-, its, the set up for a big really crude joke, is (all it is?) in here.

INTERVIEWER: How do you know some of the men executed in here were innocent?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: You look at their cases. You look at what they have for appeal, and then you see how the courts deal with it. I mean, understand something here. The courts no longer look at a case and say this man has an arguable claim of innocence, we must do something. They look at the case and they say, technically, is there any appeal options left for him under the protocol that we have? The actual merits of the case don’t enter into it. You're killed by a protocol or technical default before you can even get ‘em in sometimes. You know, I’ve known people here who had another person came forward later and said yes, I did these murders, not the man you have on death row. They executed him anyway. I’ve known people who had statements of co-defendants, who, who came forward near the end of the man’s appeal, and says look, I can’t live with this, I’d like to fix this. The man who was waiting to die tired to get a court hearing, the court says you've exhausted your appeal remedies. Whether this is accurate or not is not the point. You've exhausted your remedies, we won’t have a hearing. And he died anyway. I mean, this has happened again and again and again. And… the first case that was the worst one about that involved a man named Leo (Perera?). And the state argued with the U.S. Supreme Court that the protocol, the execution process, your options for (habeas?) appeal were what was most important. That at some point it had to be final. And that the state shouldn’t be penalized by late evidence or late information. And… the Supreme Court sided with him on that. They actually got in to a discussion of, of technical guilt versus actual innocence. And unfortunately, the court system can only deal with the technical issues, as in technical guilt. And actual innocence is a secondary issue. And Leo died, and many more since. You know, you look at Illinois, where they've had to let somebody go. Texas, Texas would never do that. Texas firmly believes on burying its mistakes. And I’m sure a lot of prosecutors and probably a lot of the public in Texas, too, feels like the, the appearance if integrity, the idea that we have to at least look like we’re doing something and look like we’re efficient and safe, is more important than actual integrity or safety. I really believe that they feel that (way?).

INTERVIEWER: Was Perera proven innocent?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: It depends on what you call proof. Of course he never got a legal technical hearing to prove his innocence. That’s the bottom line. You can look at the evidence and weigh it in terms of a preponderance. And on a preponderance, of course he would pass for innocent. But a preponderance of the evidence isn't what counts in the late steps of your appeal.

INTERVIEWER: How long do you remain here until you're taken to the holding cells prior to execution?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: Okay, we, you're somewhere on death row, you know. There’s 5 or 6 wings now, cell blocks of the death row inmates. Its huge. And then, 2 or 3 days before you're actual execution date, you're put in a, a cell on G13 cell block. And its near the door on the first row. And, its pretty, its called death watch. And you're there. They take most a your property away from you. They put you in there to make sure you don’t commit suicide and beat them to the punch.The day of your execution, you usually, a bit before lunch, or close to lunch, they'll take you from here and carry you to the walls, to the holding cell over there (...?). And you're there until they take you down the hall to the death chamber and strap you down and kill you.

INTERVIEWER: Have you visualized what it will be like for you?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: Sure. I think everybody here has, to, you know. You wonder how you're gonna handle that day. You can’t help but wonder about it. I think a lot of people who aren’t in prison and aren’t in any kind of trouble at all have sat and tried to visualize that. I mean, this idea of taking that final walk is, is almost a… its almost a… I don't know. Its, it’s a standard image in our culture according to movies and television shows.There’s always the, the TV show or the old 30s movie, where you have the priest reading from the bible and the guards escorting the man down that final walk. And I think everybody, if they've thought about he movies, or the reality (of the death penalty?) has wondered what it would be like. And of course we do so more in here than people out there do. But yeah, of course I’ve thought about it.

INTERVIEWER: What is the truth, is there a guy with a harmonica, and a priest?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: (TALKS OVER) We’re not allowed music instruments like in the movies, that’s for sure. You're there in the death watch cell, and they you know, I hear they feed you pretty good that day. I mean, there’s none a my friends have come back and told me about it. That’s for sure. I say that, I had a friend who got down to within an hour (of they?) actually had him in the death chamber before he got a stay and came back. And they have, they have a snack tray and they feed you pretty good. And the guards are, try to be a polite as they can over there.

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: They have, they have a food tray over there, and they, they treat you decent. They give you access to a telephone, which is, was real rare in this place. And, then when the time comes, if you have a religious adviser or a priest there, somebody TVC will approve of, they will walk with you from the holding cell to the execution chamber. Unfortunately, it’s the people they choose now. They'll let, there’s one priest who’s been down here for a long time that’s real close to most of the Catholics down here. And he, they'll usually let him come in there for us.

INTERVIEWER: Would you say anything to Gene (...?) before your execution?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: Probably not. Probably not. I mean, I don't know what I could say to him. You know, I… I mean, this is his gig, not mine. Of course I resent the fact that he testified against me, and you can’t you know, escape that. I try not to let it kill me inside. And eat me up with anger and, and bitterness and all that. Working on forgiveness for that is a, is a long and slow, its, it’s a day to day process that I have to work through.

INTERVIEWER: So you won’t say you're sorry for what happened to his family?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: I mean, no, why would I? This is hi gig, not mine.

INTERVIEWER: What is your opinion of state sanctioned murder?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: Well, I mean again, you know, the ridiculous answer is, well I think it’s a pretty bad idea. You know, cause that doesn’t carry any weight. I don't think people really realize how many mistakes are made. What its gonna cost in society, both in terms of families damaged and in terms of money lost. I don't think they see the long term sociological effects of having a death penalty. I think its even possible, I’m not saying its definitely true, but I think on some level the, the problem with murders in this country is partly because of the death penalty.I mean, you've completely sanctioned, given the U.S.D.A. government approval that killing somebody because you've been wronged is a valid response. And whether the government does, or you do it yourself its still given an okay. Granted they don’t officially give it, but there’s an implied okay for it. The government’s doing it, well why shouldn’t I?… I… I hesitate to make a comparison, because I always get these weird looks. But I don't think people see the slippery slope that we have with the death penalty here. You know… how to say this. Okay, the real horror, the essential, the quintessential horror of the holocaust wasn't that they killed 6 million Jews. Okay. That’s, that’s a question of magnitude. And that’s a huge thing. But the quintessential horror, the quintessential evil of the holocaust was that they could kill one. If they couldn’t kill the first one, they couldn’t have killed 6 million. But once the first one was okayed, and then 10, 50, 100, 1000, 3000, move down the road it became easier each time. I don't think that we’ll get to a point where we’re, we’re exterminating 6 million people. But, we are getting to a point that we really don’t have much respect for life in this country. Either in this country or in other countries. You know, nobody, nobody looks at, at the holocaust and says well, you know, some of those people, those 6 million were probably guilty of a crime. I’m only offended by the fact that they killed the innocent Jews, not the, not he guilty Jews. Nobody looks at the numbers and says well, 6 million’s really bad, 3, 3 million would have been acceptable. I mean, how many do you have to get down to, 3000? Before its acceptable? You know, and there’s some point I’m sure, Eichmann looked at Hitler and said 3000? Looks like a good start. You know. So I think it’s a quintessential evil that once you, once you've opened the, once you've crossed that threshold of society, where you think you have the right, and a mandate, to declare another life unworthy of life and execute him, you've crossed a threshold on your, on your own heart and soul that you can’t go back from. And, there’s just so much that can follow from that. And I think that’s where we’re heading now. In this country, we have a problem with Saddam Hussein, we have a problem with, with Slobodan Milosovic, and we don’t kill Hussein or Milosovic. We kill hundreds of citizens in Baghdad or Belgrade. You know, I mean that’s, they kill me. But my family’s the one that gets damaged. We, we want to punish as many people as we can for, for our perceived wrongs.

INTERVIEWER: How do you respond to someone who says that executing a murdered is not murder?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: I, you know, it, that, and that’s attempting to play with semantics when people say that. I mean, taking someone, deliberately holding them down and killing them is, is a murder, no matter how you look at it. It may be state sanctioned murder, but its still murder. It, it’s a word game to say its anything less.

INTERVIEWER: Any feelings on why society now supports the death penalty?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: Jeez, I been sitting here trying to figure that one out for the past 20 years (CHUCKLES) you know. Since the change came about, I’ve been trying to figure this one out. And I really don’t have an answer for that… I, I do think… I think it was in parallel with a symptom of maybe of a contributing cause. I don't know. But you remember the big conservative push in the late 70s and in 80 when Reagan was in power. When, when the conservative right took over the country, we just went crazy from there. And I think there’s this old fashioned cowboys, you know, shoot ‘em up, you know bullets be damned kind of thing that’s taken over. I think people are afraid, and crime is really not going up. Crime is pretty much stabilized, and yet the fear out there goes up every year. The media misrepresents the actual crime numbers. Not directly by lying about statistics, but as much as the way they cover crime. You know, everybody has to be more sensational to the last person, and the last person, and the crime may still be the same, but it looks different because of the way its reported now. That leads to people wanting to have a death penalty. Politicians have got into this sort of, this one upmanship. Where I’m tougher on crime than you are. No, I’m tougher. And each politician, every election cycle has to up the ante. And, you get to a point where, okay, I’m for the death penalty, well I’m more for the death penalty than you are. And the next one says well, I’ll kill twice as many as you, and I keep waiting for the politician says well, yeah but I’ll throttle him with my own hands if you (CHUCKLES) give me a chance. It’s the one, its strictly a, a… public image. You know, feeding off itself. I really think that’s what’s going on.

INTERVIEWER: What should be the appropriate punishment?

JAMES LEE BEATHARD: Okay, and, and this gets back to a… a, you have to examine what your paradigm is. What are you wanting to accomplish? I mean, are you wanting to protect society? In the, the most cost effective manner possible, and with the most success? If that’s your goal, that’s not necessarily the same thing as punishing people. The idea is, if you have a person who’s a problem human being, you need to either help that person, fix him if you can. And I’ll be the first to say, a, a lotta times change for a lotta people is just not gonna happen. A lotta people change is possible, as they get older. But for some people, it won’t. But you, you isolate that person, you get them out of society. And if you can’t give them a chance to rehabilitate, reform, change their ways, then you remove them from society. You do put ‘em in prison. I have no problem with prison as a concept. But once they're in prison, you've accomplished your goal of removing them from society. There’s nothing there that says you have to take all meaning from that man’s existence form that point forward. And that’s punishment. I think society has the paradigm that the goal of prisons is to punish. And many politicians talk that way. And it sounds good, it sounds, it appeals to some gut level baser instinct in people. I mean, for instance you were asking a while ago if… how I feel if somebody hurt my family. Well I’d want to hurt ‘em.