USA - Texas. Prisons End Special Last Meals In Executions

Texas Prisons End Special Last Meals In Executions. Texas inmates who are set to be executed will no longer get their choice of last meals, a change prison officials made today 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 yesterday for the hate crime slaying of James Byrd Jr., asked for 2 chicken fried steaks, a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, a pound of barbecue, 3 fajitas, a meat lover's pizza, a pint of ice cream and 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, D., chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, wrote in a letter Today 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."