Racist killer’s excess brings end to death row ‘last meal’

Racist killer Lawrence Russell Brewer told chefs to rustle up a feast consisting of two chicken fried steaks, a triple bacon cheeseburger, a pound of barbecue meat, three fajitas, a meat lover’s pizza, fried okra, a slab of peanut butter fudge and a pint of ice-cream.

The food went untouched. Brewer, a white supremacist convicted over the grisly lynching of James Byrd in 1998, did not eat a bite as he prepared for his lethal injection earlier this week.

It prompted a rethink on the practice by officials in Texas. From now on, those on death row will have to make do with whatever the prison kitchen chooses to serve up on that day.

Announcing the decision, Brad Livingstone, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said: “Effective immediately, no such accommodations will be made. They will receive the same meal served to other offenders on the unit.” Texas senator John Whitmire welcomed the move. It was his letter to Mr Livingstone following Brewer’s execution that had first prompted a rethink.

“It’s long overdue,” Mr Whitmire said, adding: “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.”

In a case that shocked America by its brutality, Brewer and two accomplices abducted Mr Byrd before beating him up, urinating on the injured man and chaining him to the back of a pick-up truck.

The decapitated body of Mr Byrd was dragged for a mile before being dumped.

Brewer’s final act before being executed will deprive death row prisoners in Texas of a chosen last meal, but it is yet to be seen if other states follow suit.

In Florida, a rule exists that restricts prisoners to a meal costing no more than $40.

In Texas, the most popular last meal requested by those on death row is cheeseburger and fries, according to Jason Clark at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

But more exotic requests have been made elsewhere in the US.

Murderer Robert Dale Conklin opted for filet mignon wrapped in bacon, with de-veined shrimp sautéed in garlic butter and lemon, ahead of his 2005 execution in Georgia.

In 2000, prison officials in Texas received the answer “justice, equality, world peace”, when they asked Odell Barnes for his last meal request.

Barnes’s case received international attention as human rights groups and lawyers highlighted inconsistencies in case against him.

The condemned man went to his death protesting his innocence over the 1989 rape and murder of Helen Bass. Other requests have been less lofty, and easier to prepare.

In 2001, Gerald Mitchell asked prison officials in Texas for a bag of Jolly Rancher sweets.

James Edward Smith, executed in 2000, asked simply for a “lump of dirt”.

Last Tuesday, Texas prisoner Cleve Foster’s request included two fried chickens, French fries and a five-gallon bucket of peaches. He received a reprieve from the US 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 the death house at Huntsville, at the time when his feast would have been served.

The tradition of offering a last meal to a condemned man can be traced back to ancient Greece, Rome, China and Egypt.