In addition to the fact that Brewer's request was unnecessarily indulgent, state Senator John Whitmire, Chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, was further irritated by the fact Brewer did not even eat the food after it was prepared. According to Whitmire, Brewer exploited the system by asking for '“more food than a family of four can eat in a week.”
Brewer was put to death on Wednesday and by Thursday, Brad Livingston, the executive director of the state prison agency had already received a letter from Whitmire. In his letter, Whitmire warned that he would seek a state statute to put an end to last meals for death row inmates if the practice was not discontinued at once.
According to Whitmire, the termination of the practice is “long overdue.”He noted that Brewer did not give any such considerations to his victim. ''His victim was not given a last meal,'' said Whitmore, who has been a long-time critic of Texas' ''death row menu.”
According to Michelle Lyons, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, all last meals are prepared in the prison kitchen at the Huntsville Unit. Inmates can only request food that is already in the kitchen so there is no way to track the exact expense of last meals within the state. Lyons also pointed out that the kitchen does not accommodate extreme requests. Although Brewer wanted a pound of barbecue, he apparently received a lesser amount.
Last meal requests are handled differently from one state to the next. In Florida, the inmate's meal demands cannot exceed forty dollars and the food must be available locally. In Virginia, condemned inmates can only select food that is available within the prison's 28-day rotating menu. Other states give prisoners the right to request that their meal choices be kept private.
In Texas, the death penalty capital, the final meals of the condemned could be found on the state's death row website, until 2003. The information was removed due to complaints from the public.
