Texas Abolishes Last Meal For Death Row Inmates

Reuters:

“Enough is enough,” state Senator John Whitmire wrote in a letter on Thursday 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 on Wednesday night for the 1998 dragging death of James Byrd Jr.

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 around 4 p.m. at Brewer’s cell, he declined it all, telling prison officials he wasn’t hungry.

Apparently, death penalty opponents are not bothered by the change. They say the practice makes the prison system look more humane than it is. The head of the Texas Civil Rights Project calls the tradition shameful.

I say give them the meal.

Image above from Last Suppers, a photo series by the photographer James Reynolds. See also, The Last Meals Project (below). Both via.