Texas Bans The Last Supper For Those Destined To Die: Making A Saint Of Troy Davis
PEOPLE being put to death by the State of Texas will no longer get a last meal.
Texan Senator John Whitmire, a Democrat and chair of the state Senate Criminal Justice Committee, was unimpressed by those final eats:
“Enough is enough. It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege. It’s a privilege which the perpetrator did not provide to their victim.”
Is it a privilege being presented with a tray laden with top treats and saying that this is that last time you will eat them? And if you had a last wish would it be for an elephant hoof burger dipped in aspic?
The last prisoner to have a last meal was Lawrence Russell Brewer. His last meal was not the healthy option:
Two chicken fried steaks, Triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, Fried okra, Pound of barbecue, Three fajitas, Meat lover’s pizza, Pint of ice cream and Peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts.
Brewer got his food and then found that he didn’t fancy it.
Lary Wallace writes:
Remember Ricky Ray Rector, that mentally disabled man who, about to be executed in 1992, said he didn’t want to finish his pecan pie, but that he would save it “for later“?
James Edward Smith’s request for “a lump of dirt” in 1990 was also turned down.
Victor Fegueran got an olive with the pit still in it.
It also strikes Anorak as odd that the last meal should sound like the last supper, a moment before the hero is killed by the state only to rise again.
The question is this: do prisoners die for their own sins, or do some die for the sins of others?
Hitch blames God:
The reason why the United States is alone among comparable countries in its commitment to doing this is that it is the most religious of those countries. (Take away only China, which is run by a very nervous oligarchy, and the remaining death-penalty states in the world will generally be noticeable as theocratic ones.) Once we clear away the brush, then, we can see the crystalline purity of the lex talionis and the principle of an eye for an eye.
Note: TRoy Davis was executed for the murder of 1989 murder of off-duty policeman Mark MacPhail. Amnesty International’s USA director, Larry Cox, said:
“Should Troy Davis be executed, Georgia may well have executed an innocent man and in so doing discredited the justice system.”
Witnesses changed their story. Davis maintained his innocence. Does that create doubt in his conviction? Can you kill a man in the name of justice if you are less then certain justice is being served?
11672727
Student demonstrators gather in Lafayette Park in front of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2011, as they protest the planned execution of death row inmate Troy Davis. Davis is facing lethal injection for killing an off-duty Georgia policeman in Savannah -- a crime he and others have insisted for years that he did not commit. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Posted: 23rd, September 2011 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comments (9) | TrackBack | Permalink
