"It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege," Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, wrote in a letter Thursday to Brad Livingston, the executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
What an asshole. I'm speechless.
Those people on death row are so evil, that even facing imminent death, they would deliberately waste taxpayers' money by requesting piles of food that they don't even want to eat. Darn liberals!
Prison officials said Brewer didn't eat any of it.
"Well, if you don't eat what's put in front of you, you'll just have to stay here in your cell until you do."
Is it really so unthinkable that Brewer ordered all his favorite foods, but then just couldn't summon much appetite in the big moment? Is that wrong?
I wonder: would a charity be permitted to prisoners their requested last meals? Or is that outside of visitation hours or something?
3: Maybe that was what he was hoping for.
then just couldn't summon much appetite in the big moment?
I had this same thought.
4.1: I hope you're not seriously trying to argue with 2. Because you will lose! "Against stupidity, the gods themselves are helpless!"
The previous Texas position discussed.
What happened to concentrating the stomach wonderfully?
One of the things I puzzle over with crime-'n'-punishment/yay-Joe-Arpaio types is the significant overlap with self-identifying as devout Christians. Is there some alternate version of the New Testament where JC is a vengeful dick, whom one should emulate?
8: I love them. (Generally speaking. That song is so-so.)
I had typed a joke about Texas eliminating prison chaplains because some death row inmate requested a visit from one and then didn't engage in any meaningful theological conversation, but then I googled and learned that the joke isn't funny.
I can only say again: christ, what assholes.
Is there some alternate version of the New Testament where JC is a vengeful dick, whom one should emulate?
No alternate version needed: it's the book of revelation.
Which, because it's last, repeals all others.
I mean, the idea of a dollar limit doesn't seem unreasonable to me (which some states apparently have), and this story would actually make some sense if Brewer had ordered, like, 1,000 pounds of cavier or something, and the prison officials had been stupid enough to give it to him, but what he ordered doesn't even seem outrageous. And really, can't have been that expensive.
But Sen. John Whitmire thinks it's extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death "such a privilege". You know there are hardworking Americans who don't even get to choose exactly what they want to eat for dinner some nights? Why should death row inmates be treated better than everyone else?
10: I think there are some apocryphal texts in which, contra the Atheist Jesus, Gay Jesus and Married But Totally Okay With Your Individual Choices with Respect to Your Sex Life Jesus of recent pop scholarship, the Big J arguably gets a little more "Who has no sword, let him sell his cloak and start kicking some ass," but I believe most of those Texas-style readings are controversial at best.
I.e., in a word, no, but the history of the New Testament since Paul is a chronicle of confirmation bias.
The idea of him ordering 1,000 lbs of caviar has made me helpless with laughter. I can't tell if it's the funniest thing ever or I'm just tired. Everything is the funniest thing ever when I'm a certain kind of tired.
I am going to an opera about execution this evening! Well, not really.
I read an explainer type article a while ago that said that prison officials exercise common sense restrictions on what can be ordered, decided on a more or less ad hoc basis. You can ask for a pretty nice meal, but you can't eat like a Roman emperor.
I think it is common for choices to be restricted in practice based on what's in the kitchen.
Is it really the cost of the meal that so enrages people? Nobody better tell them what the death penalty costs versus alternative methods of rehabilitation punishment.
NPR had an interview the other day with the former Texan prison cook who did, by his count, a couple of hundred last meals. He asserted that the requests were also fulfilled with the closest analogue the prison kitchen had on hand, and that common sense held sway. He also firmly asserted that despite what this prisoner had requested, there was no chance he actually received all of it.
He also firmly asserted that despite what this prisoner had requested, there was no chance he actually received all of it.
Even more depressing, really, another bit of lame bullshit.
I think it is common for choices to be restricted in practice based on what's in the kitchen.
BLACKADDER -- Now then, woman, if indeed you are a
woman, what is your function on Death Row ?
MRS PLOPPY: I'm the last meal cook, sir. The prisoners may ask for what they fancy for their last meal.
BLACKADDER: And you cook for them what they desire ?
MRS PLOPPY: Oh yes, sir. Provided they ask for sausages. Otherwise they tend to get a tiny bit disappointed. Sausages is all I got.
I'd try to find some food that reacted really badly with the chemicals used for lethal injection so that my stomach exploded or something.
From the piece linked in the OP:
"It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege," Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, wrote in a letter Thursday to Brad Livingston, the executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Within hours, Livingston said, "Effective immediately, no such accommodations will be made. They will receive the same meal served to other offenders on the unit."
Who is this Sen. Whitmire, that he has such power to dictate state policy?
Uh, the "chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee"?
I may not understand how the Texas Department of Criminal Justice works, but I would have thought that the Senate Criminal Justice Committee operated in a legislative and advisory capacity. That is, it would come up with recommendations, these would go through various musings, and the actual state agency (operating under the Governor's office, I'd have thought, not the legislature) would adopt what it would, according to whatever review procedures are in place.
I didn't think that the chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee could tell the State's Dept. of Criminal Justice what to do, and they'd have to do it.
Well, if it was something they were seriously opposed to, they wouldn't have had to do it - this is presumably a case of "we want to stay on his good side, we have the authority to do it independently, and we have no particular objection to it, so let's hustle."
In practice, agencies are typically quite responsive to committee kibitzing, since the committee controls their budget. Possibly much more so in Texas given unified government and the Leg being in session only 140 days out of 2 years.
since the committee controls their budget. Possibly much more so in Texas given unified government and the Leg being in session only 140 days out of 2 years.
Is it that bad? 140 days per 2 years?
But you're right; there may well be things the Dept. wants from the legislature that would be threatened if they didn't immediately cave on this relatively small issue. [more graphic description of this dynamic deleted]
There was that one guy in Arkansas that Clinton made sure to execute during the 1992 campaign. During the course of the man's crime he had suffered serious brain injury basically leaving him MR. After his last meal, he did not understand that he was going to die. As the guards led him out, he left some of his food and said that he would finish it when he got back.
As a consequence, Christopher Hitchens decided Bill Clinton was basically Hitler (I paraphrase a bit) and made being a neo-con fashionable, with consequences that are now splattered all over the place in piles o'dead and missing towers and zombie banks and horrible warmonger blogs and Dubai and what not.
Clearly, Hitchens was right, but not in a particularly useful way.
There was that one guy in Arkansas that Clinton made sure to execute
Why do so many liberals frame it this way? It's not like Clinton went to an island to hunt the Rain Man for sport. All he did was not stop it. And Ricky Rector was only in that condition because he fucked up shooting himself in the head after shooting the cop who arranged his surrender in the back.
It's not like Clinton went to an island to hunt the Rain Man for sport.
Worst Predator spinoff ever.
34: Not in a useful way, no, but, pace gswift, I still think it was wrong. I'm not sure that the guy was ever competent to stand trial.
I'm not sure that the guy was ever competent to stand trial.
Possibly not, but he was also as obviously guilty as is possible to be, and for two really egregiously unjustifiable murders. I'm squishy on the death penalty and ultimately come down on the side of "we're way too uncivilized a nation to be trusted with it", but Ricky Ray Rector is a spectacularly unsympathetic poster child.
38: Right, he wasn't sympathetic. And my thinking is influenced by the fact that I'm totally opposed to the death penalty. Full stop. It's not because it's inequitably applied, although it is. My opposition stems from the fact that I think it's wrong for the state--outside of war or in a situation where there is an imminent threat to safety--to execute anyone. I really think of it as murder.
Rights are just as important for the unsympathetic as the sympathetic, if not more so.
What about the right to hunt human beings for sport on exotic tropical islands?
That was in an early draft of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but that lameass Eleanor Roosevelt insisted on taking it out.
What about the right to hunt human beings for sport on exotic tropical islands?
I would support a bounty regime, particularly one that offered bounties in the high two figures for professional and college football commentators.
42: Always the buzzkill, from the White House Mess on down.
Rights are just as important for the unsympathetic as the sympathetic, if not more so.
Sure, but an unsympathetic and relatively clear cut case (as far as guilt goes) isn't going to be the one in which someone who doesn't share your death penalty views will intervene.
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Latest custodian stories:
She saw some other custodians rifling through supplies that were going to be thrown out (if I'm understanding correctly) and she tattled on them to a supervisor.
I'm so relieved to get a story I can roll my eyes at.
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I can get worked up about last meals. I mean, we're killing a person. A spoonful of sugar helps the lethal injection go down? He's dead, but he ate well.
I'm with BG. Anti death-penalty. Full stop. Once we go squishy for the clearly guilty, clearly unsympathetic, that's what leaves the penalty in place for unjust application.
I'm anti death penalty, but it certainly wouldn't make the top 10 list of things I'd change about the country and probably wouldn't make the top 100.
45: Right, but my general view cloud my thinking, as I said, in favor of making me expansive in terms of what I'm willing to view as competent to stand trial. I genuinely don't think he was competent to stand trial. Guilty or not, the procedures do matter.