Texas abolishes “special meal” option for prisoners about to be executed

No more fancy feasts for death row prisoners who are about to be killed in Texas. The state is doing away with them. The meals. And, you know, also the death row prisoners.

Brian Evans of Amnesty International, playing the role of Captain Obvious in this Reuters item:

"It's a minor thing compared with the fact that they are killing him. The cruelty of the whole process is much larger than whether you get to pick the last meal that you eat."

This meaningless political stunt was sparked by the lavish last meal requested by Lawrence Russell Brewer, the unrepentant white supremacist gang member who dragged James Byrd to death in Jasper, Texas, and was killed by lethal injection last night. Others have made similarly eccentric last meal requests:

James Edward Smith, who was executed in Texas in 1990, requested "a lump of dirt. (...) Instead of the lump of dirt, which Smith said he wanted to perform a "voodoo ritual," he got a small container of yogurt.

Yeah, well. Same diff.

Full story here.

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