Texas ends death row last meal requests

[noelyf]

Friday, 23 September 2011








The Texas prison system has abolished the time-honoured tradition of offering an opulent last meal to condemned inmates before their executions.

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  Death row prisoners will be served "the same meal served to other offenders"
  

The Texas prison system has abolished the time-honoured tradition of offering an opulent last meal to condemned inmates before their executions, saying they would get standard prison fare instead.


"Enough is enough," state Senator John Whitmire wrote to prison officials, prompting the move.
"It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege. It's a privilege which the perpetrator did not provide to their victim."


The letter was in apparent response to the dinner requested, but not eaten, by white supremacist Lawrence Brewer before he was put to death this week for a notorious 1998 killing in which James Byrd Jr, a black man, was dragged behind a truck for several miles.


Brewer requested an elaborate meal that included a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, a meat-lover's pizza, a big bowl of okra with ketchup, a pound of barbecue, a half a loaf of bread, peanut butter fudge, a pint of ice cream and two chicken-fried steaks.


When it arrived at around 4pm at Brewer's cell, he declined it all, telling prison officials he was not hungry.


Mr Whitmire, who chairs the Texas Senate Committee on Criminal Justice, threatened legislation if the prison system did not end the practice, which rarely results in the inmate getting exactly what is requested anyway.


Brad Livingston, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, replied that Mr Whitmire's concerns were valid and the practice would halt immediately.


The prisoners will be served "the same meal served to other offenders," Mr Livingston's statement said.


Most states that have the death penalty allow last-meal requests, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.


Some allow the inmate to choose from a menu, others have cost restrictions or say they must be ordered locally.
Anti-death penalty activists were not bothered by the Texas move, saying the tradition always made the prison system look more merciful than it is.


"I am totally opposed to capital punishment, but I certainly don't understand the logic of a last meal, and the way it's turned into such a show," said Jim Harrington, who heads the Texas Civil Rights Project.


Texas executes four times more inmates than the rest of the nation, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, and last meals ordered by inmates have run the gamut.


James Edward Smith, who was executed in Texas in 1990, requested "a lump of dirt." Odell Barnes, executed in 2000, requested "justice, equality and world peace."

 

[rtm27]

No more special last meals for Texas death row inmates

by Associated Press
Posted on September 22, 2011 at 2:12 PM
Updated yesterday at 6:03 PM


HOUSTON -- Texas inmates who are set to be executed will no longer get their choice of last meals, a change prison officials made Thursday after a prominent state senator became miffed over an expansive request from a man condemned for a notorious dragging death.

Lawrence Russell Brewer, who was executed Wednesday for the hate crime slaying of James Byrd Jr. more than a decade ago, asked for :
*Two chicken fried steaks smothered in gravy with sliced onions
*A triple meat bacon cheeseburger with fixings on the side
*A cheese omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and jalapenos.
*A large bowl of fried okra with ketchup
*One pound of barbecue with half a loaf of white bread
*Three fajitas with fixings
*A meat lovers pizza
*Three root beers
*One pint of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream
*A slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts

Prison officials said Brewer didn’t eat any of it.

“It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege,” Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, wrote in a letter Thursday to Brad Livingston, the executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Within hours, Livingston said the senator’s concerns were valid and the practice of allowing death row offenders to choose their final meal was history.

“Effective immediately, no such accommodations will be made,” Livingston said. “They will receive the same meal served to other offenders on the unit.”

That had been the suggestion from Whitmire, who called the traditional request “ridiculous.”

“It’s long overdue,” the Houston Democrat told The Associated Press after he was informed of Livingston’s decision. “This old boy last night, enough is enough. We’re fixing to execute the guy and maybe it makes the system feel good about what they’re fixing to do. Kind of hypocritical, you reckon?

“Mr. Byrd didn’t get to choose his last meal. The whole deal is so illogical.”

Brewer, a white supremacist gang member, was convicted of chaining Byrd, 49, to the back of a pickup truck and dragging him to his death along a bumpy road in a case shocked the nation for its brutality. Prison officials deliver inmates their requested last meal about two hours before their scheduled execution hour -- 6 p.m.

Whitmire warned in his letter that if the “last meal of choice” practice wasn’t stopped immediately, he’d seek a state statute to end it when lawmakers convene in the next legislative session.

It was not immediately clear whether other states have made similar moves. The Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based anti-capital punishment organization that collects execution statistics, said it had no final meal data.

Since Texas resumed carrying out executions in 1982, the state correction agency’s practice has been to fill a condemned inmate’s request as long as the items, or food similar to what was requested, were readily available from the prison kitchen supplies.

While extensive, Brewer’s request was far from the largest or most bizarre among the 475 Texas inmates put to death.

On Tuesday, prisoner Cleve Foster’s request included two fried chickens, French fries and a five-gallon bucket of peaches. He received a reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court but none of his requested meal. He was on his way back to death row, at a prison about 45 miles east of Huntsville, at the time when his feast would have been served.

Last week, inmate Steven Woods’ request included two pounds of bacon, a large four-meat pizza, four fried chicken breasts, two drinks each of Mountain Dew, Pepsi, root beer and sweet tea, two pints of ice cream, five chicken fried steaks, two hamburgers with bacon, fries and a dozen garlic bread sticks with marinara on the side. Two hours later, he was executed.

Years ago, a Texas inmate even requested dirt for his final meal.

Until 2003, the Texas prison system listed final meals of each prisoner as part of its death row website. That stopped at 313 final meals after officials said they received complaints from people who found it offensive.

A former inmate cook who made the last meals for prisoners at the Huntsville Unit, where Texas executions are carried out, wrote a cookbook several years ago after he was released. Among his recipes were Gallows Gravy, Rice Rigor Mortis and Old Sparky’s Genuine Convict Chili, a nod to the electric chair that once served as the execution method. The book was called “Meals to Die For.”

This.....individual refused to give a last statement, but granted an interview a few days proir to a news crew. His interview included the statement "As far as any regrets, no. No, I'd do it all over again, to tell you the truth."

---------- Post added at 05:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:45 PM ----------

Actually, an article had stated he was too busy making last minute phone calls and didn't want to eat.