Lawrence Brewer Execution: Should Death Row Inmates Have a Last Meal?
After white supremacist gang member Lawrence Brewer ordered up an especially extravagant feast before his execution Wednesday, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice ruled that death row inmates will no longer choose their last meal.
The Christian Post spoke to Dan Van Ness, editor of Restorative Justice Online and executive from the Center for Justice and Reconciliation from Prison Fellowship International.
“The practice of last meals is a little bizarre; the removal doesn’t particular bother me. To order a whole lot of food is a juvenile thing to do,” said Van Ness who has a mission to exhort and serve the Body of Christ in prisons.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
According to the Houston Chronicle, Lawrence Brewer ordered a final meal of two chicken fried steaks, triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, a cheese omelet, a large bowl of fried okra, three fajitas, a pint of Blue Bell ice cream and a pound of barbecue with a half loaf of white bread. When it was all delivered, he did not eat his last meal.
Houston Democrat Sen. John Whitmire was outraged by Brewer’s meal order and demanded that Texas death row inmates will no longer be permitted to choose the menu for their last meal.
“Effective immediately, no such accommodations will be made. They will receive the same meal served to other offenders on the unit,” said the state’s criminal justice chief Brad Livingston after receiving a letter from a flabbergasted Sen. Whitmire who called Brewer’s last meal stunt “extremely inappropriate”.
According to the Houston Press, Whitmire believes that since the perpetrator did not provide their victim with the privilege of a last meal, the entire concession should be omitted from the death penalty process.
“I am asking you to end this practice immediately or I am prepared to do so by statue next session,” Whitmire said in his letter to Livingston who took instant action on the matter.
Brewer, a white supremacist gang member, was convicted of chaining James Byrd Jr., 49, to the back of a pickup truck and dragging him to his death along a bumpy road in a case that shocked the nation for its brutality.
Van Ness believes there may be a deeper reason behind Brewer’s last meal incident.
“Brewer found a petty little way to yank our chain. To react to the yanked chain is revealing, it says that he still has a hold on us in some way. That we can’t just say what he did violated a law. What he did was horrific. It was intended to harm and kill and man because of his race. Even the ultimate sentence doesn’t deal with that harm,” said Van Ness.
Decadent last meals are nothing new. The Houston Chronicle posted a somewhat gruesome yet interesting slide show that discloses serial killer John Wayne Gacy who ordered up fried shrimp, a one-pound bucket of KFC, fries, and a pound of strawberries. California “freeway killer” William Bonin got two pizza pies, three scoops of chocolate ice cream, and three six-packs of soda.
The final meal is typically the last formal request that condemned inmates are granted before being strapped to the lethal-injection gurney. Their requests amount to statements in themselves, and while many men just seem to want a last few bites of comfort food, others offer different messages.
For example, years ago, a Texas inmate requested a pile of dirt for his final meal.
Until 2003, the Texas prison system listed the 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.
“Food can symbolize reconciliation,” said Van Ness who explained that the refusal of eating or deliberate choice of what to request has the ability to make a strong statement and that the removal of the ability to make a statement may reveal the emotionally powerful hold a death row inmate has on America because a last meal choice reflects a sliver of influence at time when they are supposed to be powerless.
Troy Davis, executed in the same night as Brewer in Georgia in a far more controversial decision, declined a last meal, opting to fast along with supporters who had hoped his life would be spared.
Van Ness said, “One of the things that the death penalty is supposed to do is put an end to a life. Brewer’s example and TDCJ’s reaction is an illustration that it can’t. The last meal is a part of the execution and the fact that it still has people upset says something.”
Senator Whitmire said, "No death-row inmate prior to execution should be catered to. It's just common sense."
“Whitmire's concerns regarding the practice of allowing death row offenders to choose their last meal are valid,” TDCJ Executive Director Livingston responded.
Van Ness asked, “In the end, we are upset because the person he murdered didn’t get a last meal and he ordered one and didn’t eat it. We become fixated on that, but what it does is help us to see?”
