When Lawrence Russell Brewer, a notorious white supremacist murderer, placed his order for his final meal earlier this month, it was too much for Senator John Whitmire, chairman of the Texas senate's criminal justice committee. He halted the state's tradition of granting a prisoner facing execution the right to request their favourite food.
Brewer, in one last attempted act of defiance, had supersized his request, ordering two fried chicken steaks, a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, a pound of barbecue meat, three fajitas, a meat lover's pizza, a pint of ice-cream and a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts. But as he was led off for his lethal injection, he hadn't eaten any of it.
Brian Price, a former prison chef who wrote Meals to Die For based on his experience of preparing "special meals" for prisoners, offered to continue the tradition for free, calling the ban "cold-hearted". His request was turned down.
The history of the last-meal in Texas – recorded online at sites such as Dead Man Eating – sums up both the background and predicament of death-row prisoners. Rare are the requests for lobster or caviar. (The meal has to be prepared from ingredients available in the prison kitchen.) More common are Dr Pepper, fried catfish, grits and burgers. In other words, the cheap, fast food of childhood – giving sociologists and psychologists plenty to chew on.
But some requests are more unusual than others. Before James Smith was executed in 1990 he asked for a handful of earth to complete a voodoo ritual. (He was refused so settled for yoghurt instead.) In 2002, Robert Buell asked for a single pitted black olive before his execution. And just before Thomas J Grasso was executed in 1995 he was asked if he wished to say anything: "I did not get my SpaghettiOs, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this."
In 2010, Texas was treated to the rather unusual spectacle of a death-row prisoner receiving – and eating — his "last" supper only to have a stay of execution. Hank Skinner, convicted in 1995 of murdering his girlfriend and her two sons, ordered three pieces of fried chicken, two catfish fillets, a bowl of green onions, a bowl of tartar sauce, a bowl of homemade ranch dressing, a bowl of shredded cheese, a bowl of crumbled eggs, two double bacon cheeseburgers, a large order of fries and a chocolate milkshake.
He was determined to finish it all, but had to give up halfway through his second cheeseburger. If he faces execution again – he is still on death row – he will have to eat whatever the prison canteen serves that day.
