That's the title of an editorial in today's San Antonio Express-News over the issue of last meal requests at Texas' death chamber. Here's an extended excerpt:
Condemned murderer Lawrence Russell Brewer participated in the Texas death row tradition of requesting a special meal before his execution last week in Huntsville. In the process, he brought an end to the custom.
Brewer was convicted of the racially motivated dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in East Texas 13 years ago, a crime that shocked the state and the nation. Brewer requested two chicken fried steaks, a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, a pound of barbecue, a half loaf of white bread, three fajitas, a meat lover's pizza, a pint of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream, a piece of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts and three root beers.
A prison spokesman said Brewer didn't eat a bite of his last meal. Whether it was the extravagance or the waste that got to him, state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, decided enough is enough.
A former warden of the Walls Unit, where the death chamber is housed, described the practice of granting a special meal to condemned prisoners as a small sign of mercy. But Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, said it was a privilege to which murderers are not entitled.
“Mr. Byrd didn't get to choose his last meal, the Associated Press quoted Whitmire. “The whole deal is so illogical.”
Whitmire stands accused of political grandstanding and lacking compassion. But his detractors would do better to direct their criticism at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which failed to put reasonable limits on the last meal tradition. Death row banquets such as the one served to Brewer represent affronts to victims, their families and taxpayers.
The much bigger issue on Texas' death row has to do with justice, not food. Last year, Anthony Graves became the 12th death row inmate to be exonerated since 1973. Five of those exonerations have come within the last eight years, largely owing to advances in forensic science, especially DNA testing.
The Oklahoman reports, "Oklahoma to continue last meal tradition for condemned inmates." It's by Andrew Knittle.
Jerry Massie, spokesman for the Oklahoma Corrections Department, said he hasn't heard from any angry lawmakers since the news broke in Texas. He said the state has strict guidelines concerning last meal requests that protect against inmates wasting huge quantities of food.
“The meal isn't prepared here at the prison,” Massie said. “There's a $15 limit and all the food must be obtained locally, in McAlester.”
Massie, who's been with the Corrections Department for 25 years, said that wasting a last meal isn't typical. He said executions typically take place at 6 p.m., with a prisoner's last meal delivered about noon the same day.
And:
Massie said the tradition of granting a last meal request for a condemned prisoner is universal, at least as far as he's concerned.
“It's pretty much the same throughout the world,” he said. “I believe we've done it here (in Oklahoma) since we started doing executions.”
Houston Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg posted "Is last meal a way to ease our conscience?"
They bought him ice cream. I still can't get my head around it. They bought a killer ice cream.
The white supremacist gang member had helped beat James Byrd Jr. just because he was black, helped chain him to the back of a pickup one night in 1998 and drag him for miles down a rugged stretch of road until his head was severed.
Yet, after visiting Death Row a few weeks ago, the sheriff and the prosecutor who helped send Lawrence Russell Brewer to the death house for the grisly Jasper crime decided to buy Brewer enough pints of Blue Bell to last him until his execution this past Wednesday.
Reading the Beaumont Enterprise story about it this week, I was at a loss to grasp such an incomprehensible act of kindness. And I was struck by the wide range of human compassion at play. On one end, a convicted murderer who more than a decade later showed not one ounce of remorse for his crime. On the other, two men who perhaps knew more about the murder than any other, buying him ice cream.
"I don't know if I'd say it was nice," the prosecutor, Guy James Gray, told the Beaumont reporter Heather Nolan. "I don't even know why we did it."
Just how much compassion, I asked myself, is due a convicted killer?
The same question emerged Thursday, when, at the request of state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, the Texas prison system announced it would stop granting last meal requests for Death Row inmates.
And:
Perhaps the special last meal is a charade to normalize, or mask, or distract from the real, gruesome ritual of state-sanctioned death. We think we can put a human touch on an act that, although vital to our American justice system, is inherently inhumane. The meal has become a sideshow, a morbid tidbit of trivia.
It may provide false comfort, making it easier for us to stomach the fact that someone is being killed in our name if we know he's left this world with a stomach full of chicken fried steak.
But ending last meal requests on Death Row could be a good thing if it helps us focus more on what's important: the crime, the victims, and the punishment.
Earlier coverage of the last meal issue is at the link.
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