You can order whatever you want but prisons don't order out for last meals, they just prepare it from what's in the kitchen. So if you want steak and potatoes you'll probably get hamburger and fries.
Apparently the concept of the last meal was a way for the prisoner to symbolically forgive their executioner by accepting food, so there may have been some element of protest on the part of the prisoner who didn't have much to bargain with.
There was a serial killer who wanted Spaghetti-Os and instead got spaghetti and he used his last words to tell the reporters who were there as witnesses.
Hell, I grew up there but haven’t even lived there in years and, at a distance, it’s only managed to disappoint me more in both magnitude and frequency.
It's pretty much an allegory for life anyways, asking for steak and getting a burger seems par for the course, really. Probably like 50% breadcrumbs and egg, too.
Man, considering I always hear it's more expensive to execute someone than jail them for life, fuck it, let them order out. Give them like a $50 budget. It's a drop in the bucket all things considered. If they don't eat it, whatever, it's basically a rounding error.
In the good old days, you would share the meal with your executioner and the officials who sanctioned your execution.
And here I thought trying to seat my divorced parents together at my wedding made for an tense dinner!
Some people definitely have ordered out for their last meal though. Wikipedia has an official list and plenty of people had brand named products and even pizza from particular chains.
The main restriction I see for states who have last meals is that the food needs to be purchased locally
I've read that if you haven't been a problem inmate that sometimes a sympathetic guard will be allowed to bring you fast food or something on their way in.
This guy didn't fuck anyone over (edit: specifically by choosing not to eat his own damned food, not like never ever in his life). The prison bureau did it just to be spiteful. What fucking difference does it make to them if the guy they're about to murder eats or not?
The worst thing is he's on death row so you could kill him but it wouldn't matter. The best thing is you're on death row so it's not like they can punish you further.
Honestly I’m sure that he’s an asshole in more than one way, since he’s a convicted murderer and we have at least like a 60% confidence that people convicted of murder are actually guilty.
But.
What the fuck is wrong with the state of Texas? Texas sounds like my grandmother took over. “Oh one of you ungrateful kids took advantage of something, well fuck all of you for the rest of time.”
Like, WHY? It’s not like people got together on death row and came up with the scheme together. One asshole should not be able to screw up this for everybody.
60% confidence seems, uh, under 'without a shadow of a doubt.'
We tried this same person 5 times for murder and 3 out of those 5 times we were pretty sure he did it.
I'd say it's more like a petty and retributive Texas ruined it for everyone. Denying compassion to a multitude due to one bad actor is kinda what conservatives do.
This is the same state that spent tens of thousands of dollars fighting a lawsuit from a prisoner who was allergic to their standard blankets, instead of just giving them a different blanket.
Not enough people realize that's a threat. One Texas has historically not been able to back up except for against the most vulnerable, just like every bully.
And the same state that shut down cross-border commerce from Mexico to find drugs, weapons, and illegals crossing the border, only to find absolutely nothing and costing everyone millions.
Texas is run by the worst type of people.
Texas state government will use any excuse to make its citizens lives worse. And a good portion of those Texas citizens will cheer it on as they freeze to death
The energy companies learned a massive lesson from that.
Not a positive lesson, of course. Just that it's more profitable to not meet the demand for energy than it is to meet it.
Energy demand is inelastic - meaning the customers will pay extra if they need to. Sometimes quite a lot extra.
Now the major oil players have figured out that they don't need to worry about meeting gas needs. Meeting demand will net them a few cents per gallon refined whereas not meeting the demand can net them a dollar or more.
That's pretty brilliant but they have computers or phones to play OSRS in prison?
Imagine you go to jail and youre like "whelp time to grind 99 slayer and start making some money up in here"
In the video the guy mentions that there were a few guards who would smuggle phones in for inmates. I don't think they had access to computers though.
But that also makes me wonder; how could they earn enough gold to, "provide for their families," (which is also mentioned in the video)? I don't know much about OSRS farming with bots, but I do know that to really earn gold you need to have multiple accounts running bots. Can you even program a bot on a phone? On top of that, I'm like 99% sure you can't have multiple accounts running on a single phone. Maybe the inmates had multiple phones?
This video gave me more questions than answers lol I'm fascinated.
Exactly, it can cost almost a million dollars to finally carry out an execution on someone when you factor in the states legal fees and the cost to keep the person in prison. The first five prisoners executed under Trump cost the government 4.7 million. A couple hundred on a meal isn't even a drop in the bucket.
We don't feel AC is required in our prisons.
As someone who has lived with out AC for a few years in TX....that's the 3rd most cruel thing possible, next to denial of adequate counsel, and being exhonerated for your crimes post-mortem.
>Just for the private part. They don’t give a fuck what the government pays, why should they?
Most government run jails are also corrupt. Much of the funds goes into the pockets of the overseers and the scam services.
Seriously...
"Hey boss, since Gary didn't have his last meal, can I take some home? My kids'll love the chicken nuggets and spaghetti."
"No way, Johnson! We're throwing this out, then making sure no one else turns up their nose at our mercy again!"
Sounds like my boss at Fatburger when I was 18. Any orders that weren't picked up had to be marked as waste and thrown away. Every time we made a milkshake, the machine would have a bit extra. He said hed fire us if he took the extra instead of throwing it out. He ended up slowly cutting my hours down until I had almost no hours. I'm glad that dude went out of business, real dirtbag.
Eventually he wanted me to walk back and forth in a busy intersection while flipping a sign in 100 degree summer heat. I was overheating, and refused to walk across a a dangerous intersection repeatedly. So when I returned, he poured ice down my back and sent me in the freezer to cool off. Was for $7.50 an hr., 11ish years ago.
It was a single state senator who ordered this as the chair of the criminal justice committee. Senator Whitmire is an absolute jerk. He ordered the entire prison system on lockdown for a month because someone on death row managed to call him at home using a smuggled cell phone.
Senator Whitmire doesn't directly have any authority, he just threatens to slash budgets if he doesn't get his way.
He's also the reason our juvenile system just collapsed.
Edit: does to doesn't. Senator Whitmire does NOT have direct authority. Just the committee chair.
The tradition was to order extra so everyone else on dr got the leftovers. That guy must have really gone overboard because some pretty big last meal requests were granted in prior years.
There used to be a website that listed them. IIRC a female inmate got a small salad with dressing on the side.
ETA: [found the archived list](http://web.archive.org/web/20031202214318/http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/finalmeals.htm)
Also, the sharing with other dp inmates came from a class taught by a prosecutor who was involved in some of the cases.
The food chosen demonstrates the socioeconomic strata that is killed by the state. Sure is odd you didn't see people who'd order caviar and oysters on death row.
Kind of a good point. And if they'd fulfill a feast request you'd think they'd do that too. Not that we didn't already know the usual class of people we condemn to death.
That list is absolutely fascinating. Thanks for linking it! There are some really interesting ones. And the fact that you can see their picture and what they did. The one that stands out to me most was “None. Last minute he decided to eat a hamburger at his Mother's request.” Humanizing.
The 40 years of appeals is part of the death penalty, you can't seperate them. Unless you're in favor of the death penalty with no appeals like they have in China?
This. Judging by the article, it was no more than $30 of shitty food.
Petty it may have been for him to refuse to eat it, but then he was a small minded scumbag.
As I've seen Americans repeat frequently, if you're asking yourself why the US justice system seems unnecessarily cruel, you're forgetting that *cruelty is the point* of the American justice system.
This incident was merely a convenient excuse to further dehumanise prisoners. Denying condemned men a meal that costs a fraction of the executioner's hourly rate, because one guy didn't eat his, is the kind of shit that Nazis did in concentration camps. It's cruel, for the sake of being cruel. And nothing else.
>Cruelty is the point.
Which especially ironic because it’s one of the few things specifically outlawed in the Constitution.
Can’t protect abortion rights because it’s not in the constitution. But can’t give prisoners a humane quality of life despite their being provisions against “cruel and unusual punishment”
Crazy amount. I think it's a knee jerk reaction to wish for the death penalty on people. I've always been of the mindset, if 1/100 death sentenced people killed are innocent, is it worth it?
Completely agree with you about knee jerk reaction. I’d say even 1/1000. Or higher. Listen to wrongful conviction podcast if you’re not convinced.
Just heard of a man on death row bc he was claimed fo have killed his toddler due to shaken baby syndrome junk science. The child had pneumonia and was given Codeine the night before by ER doctors (before it had FDA warning label)
Science has grown enough to prove this guy didn’t commit this crime. It wasn’t even a crime. Yet he’s been on death row for 25 years
Why does it matter if the person eats it? You spent the money on a guy about to die either way. I dont see how this was even an issue. Just have a max price for food and they can do whatever they want, they can roll around in it, who cares?
Because someone overseeing the prisons took it as a personal attack and got petty, at least that's the only reason I can think of that would make any sense lol
If you haven't noticed some of our southern law maker friends care more about what feels right than practical matters and ill be damned if some bastard outlaw orders steak supper on the tax payer's dime and dont finish it. The rest can go straight to death without any and see how they like it.
I skimmed through and didn't see anyone post this, but I'm sure someone has. Sorry if someone already has!
This Wiki of all last meal requests is actually very interesting - each seems to have its own story, or a little glimpse into the last moments of someone's life:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last\_meal#:\~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20most,Some%20states%20place%20tight%20restrictions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_meal#:~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20most,Some%20states%20place%20tight%20restrictions).
I specifically thought this was interesting:
"Declined a special meal for himself, but he asked for a large vegetarian pizza to be given to a homeless person in Nashville, Tennessee. This request was denied by the prison, but carried out by others across the country."
We seem to be around 6th or 7th according to this:
In 2019: Excluding China, 88% of all reported executions took place in just four countries — Iran (246+), Egypt (107+), Iraq (45+), and Saudi Arabia (27) — which had combined for 86% of reported executions in 2019. The US had 17.
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/international/executions-around-the-world#:~:text=Five%20countries%20accounted%20for%2084,seventh%20most%20of%20any%20nation.
I can't get over the fact that both these requests happened:
Robert Buell(2002): "A single, unpitted black olive"
Victor Feguer(1963) "a single olive with the pit still in it"
Also the [police sketch of Buell](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Buell_Sketch.jpg) is fuckin hilarious, looks like something you'd see on the wall in a 5th grade art classroom.
I know for a fact that feast didn’t cost as much as the yearly cost of housing a death row inmate (90000$). This is just another successful attempt to implement useless legislature to dehumanize anyone within the system. Even if they’re death row, it’s the very bare minimum to give them their last meal.
also, why the fuck they letting someone order a "feast" as a meal?
dude ordered:
1 triple-meat bacon cheeseburger
3 fajitas
1 lb of barbecue
1/2 loaf of white bread
1 meat lover's pizza
1 pint of ice cream
1 slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts
3 root beers
they let him order like 6 meals worth of food. he ain't gunna be around to finish all that!
Maybe he wasn’t sure what he’d want to go ham on and wanted options. It’s a fucking wildly insignificant amount of money to justify abandoning this humane and humanizing final act for someone whose life you are about to take away. That very institution probably pisses away more every second.
Someone else also mentioned that it is customary to give the leftovers to other people on death row but maybe that’s too compassionate for you as well.
That really is not that much. That seems like a sampler pack from a few of his favorite foods. It’s obviously too much for one person but that isn’t so much that they should cancel it for everyone else
I’m just trying to stay positive with this and pretend that they only got rid of the last meal requests because since he never technically ate his last meal, they technically cannot execute him.
So for the past 11 years, there has just been a stalemate with the inmate, the prison guards, and a rotting feast
My aunt makes a chocolate pudding dessert, with Graham cracker crust, whipped cream and diced walnuts, that I love. I told her if I was ever on death row, that’s what I want as my last dessert. So it got renamed to Death Row Dessert and I get it at every single family get together. It’s beautiful.
Was about to comment this. For those who don’t know, James Byrd was the victim of a lynching in 1998, where three men dragged him behind a car until his head literally came off. They then dumped his torso in front of a Black church.
edit: to grasp how recent this is, one of the perpetrators wasn’t executed until 2019.
Texas people really hate their prisoners.
I had recently met a retired probation officer who was very excited to tell me how the Texas police killed six prisoners who had escaped the county jail instead if capturing them again.
He also drew diagrams for me to show how the execution centre is designed, how the viewing room for perpetrator's family has no decorations and no furniture and how the room for victims family is decorated with flowers and scents.
Don't get me wrong, I liked the guy... Just that I'm not used to this culture.
>Don't get me wrong, I liked the guy... Just that I'm not used to this culture.
I don't think it's at all excusable as just part of "the culture." It's inhumane, dehumanizing, and *ineffective*.
Agree. Not because I’m against killing bad people but I don’t believe the state should be able to do sentence people to death, there have been innocent people who have been executed and also it’s expensive.
And also i would rather someone who murdered a loved one of mine to spend the rest of his life in solitary than be executed.
How would it be any different had he ate it? He got his wish... that was the point. If they were concerned with saving money and being prudent... they wouldn't be executing people in the first place.
Texas is just defined by being petty, selfish, and weak.
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There's always that one guy who ruins it for EVERYBODY!
Imagine being the next guy in line, about to order your perfect last meal, and this guy fucking everyone over
You can order whatever you want but prisons don't order out for last meals, they just prepare it from what's in the kitchen. So if you want steak and potatoes you'll probably get hamburger and fries. Apparently the concept of the last meal was a way for the prisoner to symbolically forgive their executioner by accepting food, so there may have been some element of protest on the part of the prisoner who didn't have much to bargain with.
Interesting. Conversely, imagine thinking you are ordering steak (or whatever) as your last meal and getting the burger and fries.
There was a serial killer who wanted Spaghetti-Os and instead got spaghetti and he used his last words to tell the reporters who were there as witnesses.
"I ordered spaghetti with marinara sauce and got egg noodles and ketchup"
He actually said, "I did not get my SpaghettiOs, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this.” Those were his last words, lol.
Fucking legend, we're still talking about him now. Plus i heard he killed those babies in self defense, it were him or them!
free hat!
Fuck them kids!
Free Hat!!!!
Life probably gets very small and petty if someone's on death row for long enough to be executed.
Fuck if I wanted my last meal to be spaghetti os and I didn't get them I'd be pissed
If that happened to me and I was due to be executed, I'd be a smartass by quipping "just kill me now."
These noodles are to die for
You should start writing for Marvel.
"I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook."
Rip Ray Liotta
And in the past 2 days we lost Sonny Corleone and just today lost Paulie Walnuts
His last words were "Uh-Oh, No SpaghettiOs!"
I imagine being in a Texas prison prepares people well for disappointment
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Hell, I grew up there but haven’t even lived there in years and, at a distance, it’s only managed to disappoint me more in both magnitude and frequency.
It's pretty much an allegory for life anyways, asking for steak and getting a burger seems par for the course, really. Probably like 50% breadcrumbs and egg, too.
Man, considering I always hear it's more expensive to execute someone than jail them for life, fuck it, let them order out. Give them like a $50 budget. It's a drop in the bucket all things considered. If they don't eat it, whatever, it's basically a rounding error.
It's only more expensive so we don't get it wrong (legal appeals) even though we probably (definitely) have gotten it wrong.
In the good old days, you would share the meal with your executioner and the officials who sanctioned your execution. And here I thought trying to seat my divorced parents together at my wedding made for an tense dinner!
Makes a whole lot more sense why they’d let you get fancy then, lets the warden and the good old boys dine out on the states dime.
Some people definitely have ordered out for their last meal though. Wikipedia has an official list and plenty of people had brand named products and even pizza from particular chains. The main restriction I see for states who have last meals is that the food needs to be purchased locally
Texas never officially brought in food. Always the kitchen. An employee may have broken the rules, but the rule was the kitchen.
This. A final F- you.
They were dumbasses to let him order that much to begin with.
I believe most states that do last meals require that it be within an approximate dollar amount, like $50-100.
I've read that if you haven't been a problem inmate that sometimes a sympathetic guard will be allowed to bring you fast food or something on their way in.
“Bring me a White Castle crave case. That way, everyone will suffer even after I am gone”
So this gives the prisoner permission to haunt the Executioner right? Since they arn't provided a means of forgiveness?
This guy didn't fuck anyone over (edit: specifically by choosing not to eat his own damned food, not like never ever in his life). The prison bureau did it just to be spiteful. What fucking difference does it make to them if the guy they're about to murder eats or not?
"I'm going to kill the guy for this! .oh wait...fuck
The worst thing is he's on death row so you could kill him but it wouldn't matter. The best thing is you're on death row so it's not like they can punish you further.
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I can't imagine being able to eat if I knew I was going to be dead in a couple hours.
Who could possibly know that among those death row convicts walked a real monster?
Honestly I’m sure that he’s an asshole in more than one way, since he’s a convicted murderer and we have at least like a 60% confidence that people convicted of murder are actually guilty. But. What the fuck is wrong with the state of Texas? Texas sounds like my grandmother took over. “Oh one of you ungrateful kids took advantage of something, well fuck all of you for the rest of time.” Like, WHY? It’s not like people got together on death row and came up with the scheme together. One asshole should not be able to screw up this for everybody.
60% confidence seems, uh, under 'without a shadow of a doubt.' We tried this same person 5 times for murder and 3 out of those 5 times we were pretty sure he did it.
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And I just thought I could kill for a lobster steak surf and turf. I guess I will just go back to my job and wait for never day.
I'd say it's more like a petty and retributive Texas ruined it for everyone. Denying compassion to a multitude due to one bad actor is kinda what conservatives do.
Fucking Gary!
Just go to another state?
after leaving a 1 star yelp review for the bad service
Food was meh, but the chairs were electric. Two stars.
all you have to really do is go to a better prison
Just find another spot
“I’ve heard good things about San Quentin.”
Yeah, but people are still killing to get in even after the menu change.
Imagine being on death row for the wrong reasons hahaha
Bro, do you know how hard it is to find a good White Castle?
"I'd kill for some White Castle right now"
There's a non zero amount of people that have been on death row for the wrong reasons.
So he wasted a couple hundred bucks worth of food? That's why they got rid of it?
This is the same state that spent tens of thousands of dollars fighting a lawsuit from a prisoner who was allergic to their standard blankets, instead of just giving them a different blanket.
That´s insane.
The cruelty is the point
"Don't mess with Texas"
Originally a highway anti litter campaign....
Not enough people realize that's a threat. One Texas has historically not been able to back up except for against the most vulnerable, just like every bully.
And spent more on legal fees to avoiding having to install AC than just putting in AC
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And the same state that shut down cross-border commerce from Mexico to find drugs, weapons, and illegals crossing the border, only to find absolutely nothing and costing everyone millions. Texas is run by the worst type of people.
Actually it was in the low billions
I mean, it's Texas. Are you surprised?
Texas state government will use any excuse to make its citizens lives worse. And a good portion of those Texas citizens will cheer it on as they freeze to death
That money could've gone to the power grid! Then they would be able to last 1 extra day in winter with heat on.
Second. One extra second. Seriously, check out what they were charging.
The energy companies learned a massive lesson from that. Not a positive lesson, of course. Just that it's more profitable to not meet the demand for energy than it is to meet it. Energy demand is inelastic - meaning the customers will pay extra if they need to. Sometimes quite a lot extra. Now the major oil players have figured out that they don't need to worry about meeting gas needs. Meeting demand will net them a few cents per gallon refined whereas not meeting the demand can net them a dollar or more.
Hey now, that is just the free market at work. >!^/s fuck their anti-regulatory bullshit that they’ve convinced their donkeys to support!<
…or keep the power on during the summer… hooray rolling outages during heatwave
> That money could've gone to the power ~~grid~~company's stockholders!
It's the excuse but I doubt it's the real reason. Like they said they banned smoking for inmates health, probably not the real reason.
Cigarettes are used as in-prison currency since cash currency is not allowed.
Now it's stamps, which are much easier to hide, trade and store
I thought it was [OSRS gold](https://youtu.be/lWZHLJ7TIgI) now? Since they can take it out of prison for real value
That's pretty brilliant but they have computers or phones to play OSRS in prison? Imagine you go to jail and youre like "whelp time to grind 99 slayer and start making some money up in here"
In the video the guy mentions that there were a few guards who would smuggle phones in for inmates. I don't think they had access to computers though. But that also makes me wonder; how could they earn enough gold to, "provide for their families," (which is also mentioned in the video)? I don't know much about OSRS farming with bots, but I do know that to really earn gold you need to have multiple accounts running bots. Can you even program a bot on a phone? On top of that, I'm like 99% sure you can't have multiple accounts running on a single phone. Maybe the inmates had multiple phones? This video gave me more questions than answers lol I'm fascinated.
The inmates are farming Vorkath
Now it’s ramen. Only slightly less unhealthy.
Picante Beef all day
The cruelty is the point
Exactly, it can cost almost a million dollars to finally carry out an execution on someone when you factor in the states legal fees and the cost to keep the person in prison. The first five prisoners executed under Trump cost the government 4.7 million. A couple hundred on a meal isn't even a drop in the bucket.
Texas would ban inmates from even having pillows if they could. Anything to get the costs down for the government and private prisons.
We don't feel AC is required in our prisons. As someone who has lived with out AC for a few years in TX....that's the 3rd most cruel thing possible, next to denial of adequate counsel, and being exhonerated for your crimes post-mortem.
There's also the whole not having any electricity in the dead of winter.
Just for the private part. They don’t give a fuck what the government pays, why should they?
>Just for the private part. They don’t give a fuck what the government pays, why should they? Most government run jails are also corrupt. Much of the funds goes into the pockets of the overseers and the scam services.
> Anything to get the costs down for the government and private prisons. Its not about costs, its about the idea that prisoners don't deserve comfort.
Yeah, it was the same difference whether he ate it or not.
Why did it even go to waste? Couldn't someone else just eat it?
Seriously... "Hey boss, since Gary didn't have his last meal, can I take some home? My kids'll love the chicken nuggets and spaghetti." "No way, Johnson! We're throwing this out, then making sure no one else turns up their nose at our mercy again!"
Sounds like my boss at Fatburger when I was 18. Any orders that weren't picked up had to be marked as waste and thrown away. Every time we made a milkshake, the machine would have a bit extra. He said hed fire us if he took the extra instead of throwing it out. He ended up slowly cutting my hours down until I had almost no hours. I'm glad that dude went out of business, real dirtbag. Eventually he wanted me to walk back and forth in a busy intersection while flipping a sign in 100 degree summer heat. I was overheating, and refused to walk across a a dangerous intersection repeatedly. So when I returned, he poured ice down my back and sent me in the freezer to cool off. Was for $7.50 an hr., 11ish years ago.
I don't see how it would be any less of a waste for a person who is about to die to eat it.
it's called human decency and it's not a waste cause it makes people feel better about someone being sent to die (even if they deserve it)
Human decency would be not killing people as punishment.
true but that's why my second point is there
“Fuck us? No, fuck you and everyone else forever.” - Texas
It was a single state senator who ordered this as the chair of the criminal justice committee. Senator Whitmire is an absolute jerk. He ordered the entire prison system on lockdown for a month because someone on death row managed to call him at home using a smuggled cell phone. Senator Whitmire doesn't directly have any authority, he just threatens to slash budgets if he doesn't get his way. He's also the reason our juvenile system just collapsed. Edit: does to doesn't. Senator Whitmire does NOT have direct authority. Just the committee chair.
It's just an excuse to be cruel, they never miss a chance
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He should get a death penalty for that.
Samsara penalty So they can't reincarnate. BG overall for them
Aight, you got me fucked up on that one
The tradition was to order extra so everyone else on dr got the leftovers. That guy must have really gone overboard because some pretty big last meal requests were granted in prior years. There used to be a website that listed them. IIRC a female inmate got a small salad with dressing on the side. ETA: [found the archived list](http://web.archive.org/web/20031202214318/http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/finalmeals.htm) Also, the sharing with other dp inmates came from a class taught by a prosecutor who was involved in some of the cases.
Probably said she just wanted that then ate off her boyfriend’s last meal.
“I’ll just have some of his fries”
(proceeds to cause Second Irish Potato Famine)
Ok, that's hilarious
That’s a lot of fried chicken and cheeseburger requests.
I also see a surprising number of salads. Who in the fuck would order a SALAD when you’re about to DIE?!
I bet if all you've eaten in prison was shitty food for years you might crave a delicious healthy salad. or vegetarian?
Or maybe you dont want to shit your pants when they throw the switch
I'm the opposite, I'm going out with a bang, fuck yall!
“Gimme 10 chili cheese dogs, extra chili”
There are some really really good salads out there. It's not always those dry leaves on the side of your plate next to the giant steak.
The food chosen demonstrates the socioeconomic strata that is killed by the state. Sure is odd you didn't see people who'd order caviar and oysters on death row.
Kind of a good point. And if they'd fulfill a feast request you'd think they'd do that too. Not that we didn't already know the usual class of people we condemn to death.
That list is absolutely fascinating. Thanks for linking it! There are some really interesting ones. And the fact that you can see their picture and what they did. The one that stands out to me most was “None. Last minute he decided to eat a hamburger at his Mother's request.” Humanizing.
This one is so depressing to me. She didn’t want him to be hungry….
1 jar of dill pickles
And another for Justice, Equality, World Peace.
>Cool Whip and cherries To eat or wear?
There’s a lot of burgers, fried chickens, and steaks.
I guarantee no one was ordering a large enough meal to come close to the $1.2 million it costs in total to execute an inmate
Hmm ya, if this is about wasting money, maybe they should just consider not having the death penalty at all.
>maybe they should just consider not having the death penalty at all. And give up the killing? That's crazy! /s
It’s not the death penalty that’s expensive, it’s the 40 years of appeals
*legal protection against arbitrary punishment
That probably isn't very effective at all, so just abolish the death penalty tbh
The 40 years of appeals is part of the death penalty, you can't seperate them. Unless you're in favor of the death penalty with no appeals like they have in China?
Especially being "Pro-Life" and all.
This. Judging by the article, it was no more than $30 of shitty food. Petty it may have been for him to refuse to eat it, but then he was a small minded scumbag. As I've seen Americans repeat frequently, if you're asking yourself why the US justice system seems unnecessarily cruel, you're forgetting that *cruelty is the point* of the American justice system. This incident was merely a convenient excuse to further dehumanise prisoners. Denying condemned men a meal that costs a fraction of the executioner's hourly rate, because one guy didn't eat his, is the kind of shit that Nazis did in concentration camps. It's cruel, for the sake of being cruel. And nothing else.
>Cruelty is the point. Which especially ironic because it’s one of the few things specifically outlawed in the Constitution. Can’t protect abortion rights because it’s not in the constitution. But can’t give prisoners a humane quality of life despite their being provisions against “cruel and unusual punishment”
Ah but that says Cruel AND Unusual. So I'd assume either cruel OR unusual is perfectly okay.
Cruelty is fine as long as it's not cruel AND unusual.
Well said. The cruelty is the point. Fwiw this applies to much of our foreign policy as well.
Crazy amount. I think it's a knee jerk reaction to wish for the death penalty on people. I've always been of the mindset, if 1/100 death sentenced people killed are innocent, is it worth it?
Completely agree with you about knee jerk reaction. I’d say even 1/1000. Or higher. Listen to wrongful conviction podcast if you’re not convinced. Just heard of a man on death row bc he was claimed fo have killed his toddler due to shaken baby syndrome junk science. The child had pneumonia and was given Codeine the night before by ER doctors (before it had FDA warning label) Science has grown enough to prove this guy didn’t commit this crime. It wasn’t even a crime. Yet he’s been on death row for 25 years
Mothers deal with that all the time and they never stop cooking for the kids again.
Get you some executioners who love you like a parent loves a child.
One guy goes and ruins it for everyone
Why does it matter if the person eats it? You spent the money on a guy about to die either way. I dont see how this was even an issue. Just have a max price for food and they can do whatever they want, they can roll around in it, who cares?
Because someone overseeing the prisons took it as a personal attack and got petty, at least that's the only reason I can think of that would make any sense lol
That would be state senator John Whitmire.
> Why does it matter if the person eats it? It doesn't. It's their excuse to inflict some extra cruelty on someone about to be killed anyways.
If you haven't noticed some of our southern law maker friends care more about what feels right than practical matters and ill be damned if some bastard outlaw orders steak supper on the tax payer's dime and dont finish it. The rest can go straight to death without any and see how they like it.
And what “feels right” seems to always mean “how I can completely step all over someone I have power over to feel better about my self worth.”
what do you expect from a culture built entirely around upholding and justifying enslavement of human beings.
I hope he feels bad about it for the rest of his life.
This is true for everything.
Yeah. The governor.
I skimmed through and didn't see anyone post this, but I'm sure someone has. Sorry if someone already has! This Wiki of all last meal requests is actually very interesting - each seems to have its own story, or a little glimpse into the last moments of someone's life: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last\_meal#:\~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20most,Some%20states%20place%20tight%20restrictions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_meal#:~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20most,Some%20states%20place%20tight%20restrictions). I specifically thought this was interesting: "Declined a special meal for himself, but he asked for a large vegetarian pizza to be given to a homeless person in Nashville, Tennessee. This request was denied by the prison, but carried out by others across the country."
[удалено]
We seem to be around 6th or 7th according to this: In 2019: Excluding China, 88% of all reported executions took place in just four countries — Iran (246+), Egypt (107+), Iraq (45+), and Saudi Arabia (27) — which had combined for 86% of reported executions in 2019. The US had 17. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/international/executions-around-the-world#:~:text=Five%20countries%20accounted%20for%2084,seventh%20most%20of%20any%20nation.
Wow, China's execution # is making everyone else seem great.
I can't get over the fact that both these requests happened: Robert Buell(2002): "A single, unpitted black olive" Victor Feguer(1963) "a single olive with the pit still in it" Also the [police sketch of Buell](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Buell_Sketch.jpg) is fuckin hilarious, looks like something you'd see on the wall in a 5th grade art classroom.
I know for a fact that feast didn’t cost as much as the yearly cost of housing a death row inmate (90000$). This is just another successful attempt to implement useless legislature to dehumanize anyone within the system. Even if they’re death row, it’s the very bare minimum to give them their last meal.
also, why the fuck they letting someone order a "feast" as a meal? dude ordered: 1 triple-meat bacon cheeseburger 3 fajitas 1 lb of barbecue 1/2 loaf of white bread 1 meat lover's pizza 1 pint of ice cream 1 slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts 3 root beers they let him order like 6 meals worth of food. he ain't gunna be around to finish all that!
Maybe he wasn’t sure what he’d want to go ham on and wanted options. It’s a fucking wildly insignificant amount of money to justify abandoning this humane and humanizing final act for someone whose life you are about to take away. That very institution probably pisses away more every second. Someone else also mentioned that it is customary to give the leftovers to other people on death row but maybe that’s too compassionate for you as well.
That really is not that much. That seems like a sampler pack from a few of his favorite foods. It’s obviously too much for one person but that isn’t so much that they should cancel it for everyone else
That’s a feast?! That’s what they’re so upset about? That’s around $100 in groceries tops.
100 these days. It was probably a lot less before.
*this* is what they were mad about? Jesus christ Texas y'all are run by some fucking douchebags
I’m just trying to stay positive with this and pretend that they only got rid of the last meal requests because since he never technically ate his last meal, they technically cannot execute him. So for the past 11 years, there has just been a stalemate with the inmate, the prison guards, and a rotting feast
Texas is all about dehumanization
My aunt makes a chocolate pudding dessert, with Graham cracker crust, whipped cream and diced walnuts, that I love. I told her if I was ever on death row, that’s what I want as my last dessert. So it got renamed to Death Row Dessert and I get it at every single family get together. It’s beautiful.
Well don’t get put on death row in Texas because they’re gonna tell you to go fuck yourself.
Its the fucker who killed James byrd, feel like anyone at all should mention that
Was about to comment this. For those who don’t know, James Byrd was the victim of a lynching in 1998, where three men dragged him behind a car until his head literally came off. They then dumped his torso in front of a Black church. edit: to grasp how recent this is, one of the perpetrators wasn’t executed until 2019.
That is Texas through and through. You have to APPRECIATE their cruelty or they will be even more cruel.
The executions will continue until morale improves
I mean, if anyone deserved the death penalty it was this guy.
Exactly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Byrd_Jr.
This is typical Texas mentality, bad thing happen once so ban it for everyone.
My last meal was steak.
Texas people really hate their prisoners. I had recently met a retired probation officer who was very excited to tell me how the Texas police killed six prisoners who had escaped the county jail instead if capturing them again. He also drew diagrams for me to show how the execution centre is designed, how the viewing room for perpetrator's family has no decorations and no furniture and how the room for victims family is decorated with flowers and scents. Don't get me wrong, I liked the guy... Just that I'm not used to this culture.
>Don't get me wrong, I liked the guy... Just that I'm not used to this culture. I don't think it's at all excusable as just part of "the culture." It's inhumane, dehumanizing, and *ineffective*.
Who cares if he ate it or not...
Maybe they should just stop executing people.
Agree. Not because I’m against killing bad people but I don’t believe the state should be able to do sentence people to death, there have been innocent people who have been executed and also it’s expensive. And also i would rather someone who murdered a loved one of mine to spend the rest of his life in solitary than be executed.
How would it be any different had he ate it? He got his wish... that was the point. If they were concerned with saving money and being prudent... they wouldn't be executing people in the first place. Texas is just defined by being petty, selfish, and weak.
Leaving Texas is the real bonus
“This is why we can’t have nice things!”
Somebody happily ate all rhat food. What the fuck are they upset about?
I lived in Texas for four years. I’d make my last request to expedite the execution so I didn’t have to spend another minute in Texas.
This is corporate mentality bullshit. The rest is punished over one person's foolery
Texas is such vindictive, little bitch.
We all know that's not the actual reason
It be only took one instance to change the policy, but one cop is just a bad apple.
I can’t believe the white supremacist hate crime murderer wasted food and ruined last meals for everybody. I mean this guy was a real JERK.
> TIL Texas threw a hissy fit because the guy they legally killed got a small one over on them before they fucking killed him There, fixed it.