For decades, Texas permitted condemned inmates to select a final meal before being executed, a practice that is allowed in many US states. However, this tradition came to an abrupt end in the state of Texas following one particularly controversial food order that was made in 2011. Lawrence Russell Brewer, a white supremacist gang member convicted for his role in the horrific 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr., became infamous not only for his crime but also for his extravagant last meal request, and his subsequent refusal to eat it.
Brewer was executed by lethal injection in September 2011. Before his death, he requested a lavish feast that included two chicken-fried steaks smothered in gravy with sliced onions, a triple bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, three fajitas, a pizza, a pint of ice cream, and peanut butter fudge. When his meal was served, however, Brewer declined to eat any of it.
Texas state senator, John Whitmire criticised the tradition of granting special last meals to death row inmates, calling it an “extremely inappropriate” privilege that victims like James Byrd Jr. were never afforded.
In response, Brad Livingston, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, announced the immediate end of personalised last meal requests.
From that point onwards, inmates on death row would receive the same meals as the general prison population, ending a practice that had been in place in Texas since 1924.
The murder shocked the nation and led to the enactment of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009, expanding federal hate crime laws.
James Byrd Jr. was offered a lift as he was walking home after going to a family event. Brewer and two accomplices on a rural Texas road offered to give him a lift. He was viciously beaten, urinated on, chained by his ankles to the back of a vehicle, and dragged for three miles.
It was revealed that for much of the horrific ordeal, Byrd was still alive, and ultimately died when his body struck a concrete drainage ditch.
Brewer and John William King were sentenced to death for their roles, while Shawn Berry received a life sentence.
Brewer expressed no remorse for his actions and famously said: “As far as any regrets, no, I have no regrets. No, I’d do it all over again, to tell you the truth.”