No More Last Meal Requests On Texas Death Row

(NewsCore) - Texas ended its practice of feeding special last meals to its death-row inmates Thursday after a state senator blasted the huge quantity of food given to a prisoner ahead of his execution the day before, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Lawrence Brewer, 44, was put to death in Huntsville, Texas, Wednesday for killing a disabled black man by dragging him behind his pickup truck in 1998.

Brewer had requested an extensive last meal of two chicken fried steaks, a triple bacon cheeseburger, a cheese omelet, a large bowl of fried okra, three fajitas, a pint of ice cream and a pound of barbecue with a half loaf of white bread. He did not eat the food.

The request prompted state Sen. John Whitmire to write a letter to Brad Livingston, the executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, calling Brewer's request "ridiculous."

"I have long been concerned and opposed to the practice of providing a last meal of choice to death row inmates just prior to their execution," the Democrat wrote, according to the Chronicle. "It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege. One which the perpetrator did not provide to their victim."

Citing Brewer's gluttonous request, Whitmire declared, "now enough is enough." He threatened to change the practice "by statute" if Livingston did not end it immediately.

In a statement issued in response to Whitmire's letter, Livingston called the state senator's concerns "valid."

"Effective immediately, no such accommodations will be made. They will receive the same meal served to other offenders on the unit," the statement said, according to the Chronicle.

Read more: Houston Chronicle