Oklahoma to continue last meal tradition for condemned inmates

"Last meal: Ruben Cantu"
by Kate MacDonald

Oklahoma will continue to grant special last meal requests for death row inmates before they're executed.

Despite a high-profile move by Texas prison officials to end the long-standing tradition, Oklahoma will continue to grant last meal requests to death row inmates before they're executed.

Last week, the head of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice announced that death row inmates in the Lone Star State will no longer be granted opulent last meal requests after a convicted murderer didn't touch a large offering provided by a Texas prison.

Lawrence Russell Brewer, who was executed Wednesday for the June 1998 dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas, reportedly ordered a massive feast for his last meal, including two chicken-fried steaks, a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, a pound of barbecue, three fajitas, a meat lover's pizza, a pint of ice cream and a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts.

When Texas prison officials reported that Brewer didn't eat a bite of food before he was killed by lethal injection, state Sen. John Whitmire promptly wrote a letter to the director of the state's corrections department demanding the long-standing practice be discontinued.

Within hours, Whitmire's request was granted by Brad Livingston, the executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, who found the senator's demands appropriate.

Jerry Massie, spokesman for the Oklahoma Corrections Department, said he hasn't heard from any angry lawmakers since the news broke in Texas. He said the state has strict guidelines concerning last meal requests that protect against inmates wasting huge quantities of food.

“The meal isn't prepared here at the prison,” Massie said. “There's a $15 limit and all the food must be obtained locally, in McAlester.”

Massie, who's been with the Corrections Department for 25 years, said that wasting a last meal isn't typical. He said executions typically take place at 6 p.m., with a prisoner's last meal delivered about noon the same day.

“For the most part, they eat it,” he said. “Of course, some times they don't.”

In 2011, 2 inmates have been executed in Oklahoma.

Billy Don Alverson, 39, was executed Jan. 6 for the 1995 beating death of a Tulsa store clerk. Jeffrey David Matthews, 38, died by lethal injection 5 days later for killing his uncle in 1994.

According to prison officials, Alverson requested a large pepperoni and Italian sausage pizza and a large Dr Pepper for his last meal. Matthews ordered a small deep-dish pizza, deep-fried shrimp with cocktail sauce and two Hush Puppies with vinegar sauce.

Massie said the tradition of granting a last meal request for a condemned prisoner is universal, at least as far as he's concerned.

“It's pretty much the same throughout the world,” he said. “I believe we've done it here (in Oklahoma) since we started doing executions.”

Since a federal ban on capital punishment was lifted in the 1970s, Oklahoma has executed 96 inmates, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Only Texas, with 475, has executed more prisoners. In fact, Oklahoma's nearest rivals, in terms of post-ban executions, are Florida (69) and Missouri (68). [my note----this is factually incorrect....Virginia ranks 2nd in US executions with 109 since the death penalty was re-legalized on July 2, 1976]

Massie said there are currently no executions scheduled in Oklahoma.

Source: The Oklahoman, September 27, 2011

Related articles:

Death Penalty News: Texas Prisons End Special Last Meals In ...

Sep 23, 2011

Texas inmates who are set to be executed will no longer get their choice of last meals, a change prison officials made Thursday after a prominent state senator became miffed over an expansive request from a man ...

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

Death Penalty News: 'Last Meals', a series of oil paintings by death ...

Jul 22, 2011

Originally conceived to participate in the Texas Moratorium Network's exhibit Justice For All? Artists Reflect on the Death Penalty, the first painting of the series, Last Meal: Ruben Cantu, has been shown at galleries in Austin ...

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

Death Penalty News: Alabama executes Derrick O'Neal Mason

Sep 23, 2011

In the final hours before the execution, Mason refused to eat breakfast and he wasn't expected to eat dinner, either, prison officials said. He did not request a special last meal, saying he was fasting today. Several people...

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

Comments

Florida executes Michael Tanzi

Florida on Tuesday executed a death row inmate described by one local detective as a "fledgling serial killer" for the murder of a beloved Miami Herald employee. Florida executed Michael Tanzi on Tuesday, 25 years after the murder of beloved Miami Herald employee Janet Acosta, who was attacked in broad daylight on her lunch break in 2000. Michael Tanzi, 48, was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford and pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. ET.

South Carolina | Man who ambushed off-duty cop to face firing squad in second execution of its kind

Mikal Mahdi, 48, who was found guilty of killing an off-duty police officer and a convenience store worker, is the second inmate scheduled to executed by South Carolina's new firing squad A murderer who ambushed and shot an off duty police officer eight times before burning his body in a killing spree is set to become the second person to die by firing squad. South Carolina's highest court has rejected the last major appeal from Mikal Mahdi, 41, who is to be put to death with three bullets to the heart at 6pm on April 11 at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Mahdi's lawyers said his original lawyers put on a shallow case trying to spare his life that didn't call on relatives, teachers or people who knew him and ignored the impact of weeks spent in solitary confinement in prison as a teen.

Lethal Injection, Electric Chair, or Firing Squad? An Inhumane Decision for Death Row Prisoners

South Carolina resumed executions with the firing squad killing of Brad Sigmon last month. Mikal Madhi’s execution date is days away. The curtain shrieked as it was yanked open to reveal a 67-year-old man tied to a chair. His arms were pulled uncomfortably behind his back. The red bull’s-eye target on his chest rose and fell as he desperately attempted to still his breathing. The man, Brad Sigmon, smiled at his attorney, Bo King, seated in the front row before guards placed a black bag over his head. King said Sigmon appeared to be trying his best to put on a brave face for those who had come to bear witness.

Afghanistan | Four men publicly executed by Taliban with relatives of victims shooting them 'six or seven times' at sport stadium

Four men have been publicly executed by the Taliban, with relatives of their victims shooting them several times in front of spectators at a sport stadium. Two men were shot around six to seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the centre of Afghanistan's Badghis province, witnesses told an AFP journalist in the city. The men had been 'sentenced to retaliatory punishment' for shooting other men, after their cases were 'examined very precisely and repeatedly', the statement said. 'The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace but they refused.'

South Carolina executes Mikal Mahdi

Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers A man facing the death penalty for committing two murders was executed by firing squad on Friday, the second such execution in the US state of South Carolina this year. Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers, an off-duty police officer, and the murder of a convenience store employee three days earlier. According to a statement from the prison, "the execution was performed by a three-person firing squad at 6:01 pm (2201 GMT)," with Mahdi pronounced dead four minutes later.

Louisiana | Lawyers of Jessie Hoffman speak about their final moments before execution

As Louisiana prepared its first execution in 15 years, a team of lawyers from Loyola Law were working to save Jessie Hoffman’s life. “I was a young lawyer three years out of law school, and Jessie was almost finished with his appeals at that time, and my boss told me we needed to file something for Jessie because he’s in danger of being executed,” Kappel said. Kappel and her boss came up with a civil lawsuit to file that said since they wouldn’t give him a protocol for his execution, he was being deprived of due process, and the lawsuit was in the legal process for the next 10 years.

USA | Why the firing squad may be making a comeback

South Carolina plans to execute Mikal Mahdi on Friday for the murder of a police officer, draping a hood over his head and firing three bullets into his heart. The choice to die by firing squad – rather than lethal injection or the electric chair – was Mahdi’s own, his attorney said last month: “Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils.” If it proceeds, Mahdi’s execution would be the latest in a recent string of events that have put the spotlight on the firing squad as a handful of US death penalty states explore alternatives to lethal injection, by far the nation’s dominant execution method.

I spent 16 years in solitary in South Carolina. This is what it did to me. | Opinion

South Carolinian Randy Poindexter writes about the effects 16 years of solitary confinement had on him ahead of South Carolina’s planned execution of Mikal Mahdi , who spent months in solitary as a young man. For 16 years, I lived in a concrete cell. Twenty-three hours a day, every day, for more than 3,000 days, South Carolina kept me in solitary confinement. I was a young man before I was sent to solitary — angry, untreated and unwell. I made mistakes. But I wasn’t sentenced to madness. That’s what solitary did to me. My mental health worsened with each passing day. At first, paranoia and depression set in. Then, hallucinations and self-mutilation. I talked to people who weren’t there. I cut myself to feel something besides despair. I could do nothing as four of my friends and fellow prisoners took their own lives rather than endure another day of torturous isolation.

Arizona | The cruelty of isolation: There’s nothing ‘humane’ about how we treat the condemned

On March 19, I served as a witness to the execution of a man named Aaron Gunches, Arizona’s first since 2022. During his time on death row, he begged for death and was ultimately granted what is likely more appropriately described as an emotionless state-assisted suicide. This experience has profoundly impacted me, leading to deep reflection on the nature of death, humanity, and the role we play in our final moments. When someone is in the end stages of life, we talk about hospice care, comfort, care, easing suffering and humane death. We strive for a “good death” — a peaceful transition. I’ve seen good ones, and I’ve seen bad, unplanned ones.

Execution date set for prisoner transferred to Oklahoma to face death penalty

An inmate who was transferred to Oklahoma last month to face the death penalty now has an execution date. George John Hanson, also known as John Fitzgerald Hanson, is scheduled to die on June 12 for the 1999 murder of 77-year-old Mary Bowles. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday set the execution date. The state’s Pardon and Parole Board has a tentative date of May 7 for Hanson’s clemency hearing, executive director Tom Bates said.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog