AUSTIN, Texas — A gut-busting dinner, including a triple cheeseburger, pizza, fajitas, two chicken-fried steaks and pint of ice cream, sent some Texans over the edge.
Death row inmate Lawrence Brewer’s food order seemed more like a feast fit for an army than a man headed to execution. Now, because of public outrage, it’s last special meal that will be made for condemned prisoners.
The longtime tradition came to a halt Thursday when Department of Criminal Justice Executive Director Brad Livingston yielded to demands from a state senator, who called the practice “ridiculous” and “illogical.”
“Effective immediately, no such accommodations will be made,” Livingston said. “They will receive the same meal served to other offenders on the unit.”
Sen. John Whitmire was seething after Brewer, a white supremacist executed Wednesday night, ordered a meal monstrosity — and then didn’t eat it.
Brewer was convicted for his role in the racially motivated 1998 dragging murder of James Byrd Jr.
His last-mean order also included a cheese omelet, a large bowl of okra, a pound of barbecue with halfa loaf of white bread and slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts.
“Enough is enough,” Whitmire wrote in a letter. “I hope that someone at TDCJ decides to use some good judgment.”
Whitmire, chairman of a committee that oversees the prison system, wrote that he was prepared to pass a law ending the last meal practice if the department didn’t do so on its own immediately.
Livingston responded soon after getting the letter: “I believe Senator Whitmire’s concerns regarding the practice of allowing death row offenders to choose their last meal are valid.”
Whitmire said in an interview that he found the practice odd since he first witnessed it years ago, but after Brewer’s last-meal order, he knew it was time to act.
“I have always questioned why you would take the worst criminal we have and cater to him or her,” he said. “Brewer commits the most heinous crime you can imagine, and you let him choose not one, but multiple things. It’s just nuts.”
Jim Harrington, executive director of the anti-death-penalty Texas Civil Rights Project, said it was bizarre for Brewer to order such an elaborate meal.
“There is no point in rewarding them,” Harrington said. “A murderer shouldn’t have an extravagant meal. They are entitled to a nutritious meal, but not an extravagant one.
Prisoners facing execution previously could make a reasonable last meal request that the Huntsville prison kitchen staff would try to accommodate. A spokesman said the staff would only use food available in the prison kitchen.
“I just don’t think we ought to be handing out a death row menu,” Whitmire said.
The last meal Lawrence Brewer requested and didn't eat:
Two chicken-fried steaks smothered in gravy with sliced onions
A triple-meat bacon cheeseburger with fixings on the side
A cheese omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and jalapenos
A large bowl of fried okra with ketchup
One pound of barbecue with half a loaf of white bread
Three fajitas with fixings
A meat lover’s pizza
Three root beers
A pint of vanilla ice cream
A slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts
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