TX - James Byrd Jr dragged to death in Jasper, 7 June 1998

[Tuffy]

Really???!!! The State is putting someone (however awful) to death and people are worried that a little food is wasted? Really???!!!

Yes, because he's being an on purpose. It was more than a little food too. It was a meal that could have fed four people.

These people are on death row, they deserve nothing better than what the other prisoners are eating that day.

 

[Nova]

Yes, because he's being an on purpose. It was more than a little food too. It was a meal that could have fed four people.

These people are on death row, they deserve nothing better than what the other prisoners are eating that day.

Could you be any more hard-hearted? The other prisoners aren't being murdered that day.

A human being is being killed by the State in our name. And you and the Texas legislature are worried that okra will go to waste? I doubt it. (In fact, I can practically guarantee you that as much food and more goes to waste at every prison every day.)

This is just one more way to punish those on death row, because murdering them apparently isn't enough. What a bunch of barbarians are we!

 

[Tuffy]

Could you be any more hard-hearted? The other prisoners aren't being murdered that day.

A human being is being killed by the State in our name. And you and the Texas legislature are worried that okra will go to waste? I doubt it. (In fact, I can practically guarantee you that as much food and more goes to waste at every prison every day.)

This is just one more way to punish those on death row, because murdering them apparently isn't enough. What a bunch of barbarians are we!

I disagree Nova. I don't feel that it is being hard hearted to tell these murderers that they do not get an extra-special meal that day. They can eat their usual meal, no more no less.

I don't have any strong feelings on the death penalty, but I doubt that feeding these people a special meal before dying means all that much to them. I'm not sure what the point was in even starting this 'tradition' in the first place. To me it's bizarre, and silly. Let's just cut out the nonsense. -They're there for punishment, not as dinner guests.

 

[Nova]

I disagree Nova. I don't feel that it is being hard hearted to tell these murderers that they do not get an extra-special meal that day. They can eat their usual meal, no more no less.

I don't have any strong feelings on the death penalty, but I doubt that feeding these people a special meal before dying means all that much to them. I'm not sure what the point was in even starting this 'tradition' in the first place. To me it's bizarre, and silly. Let's just cut out the nonsense. -They're there for punishment, not as dinner guests.

I'm sure you're right, Tuffy, that a special meal does little to make a condemned person's last day a happy one.

But it is the tradition and a small gesture that says the day of execution is not just another day. That the Texas legislature thought it worth their time to abolish this symbolic gesture is disgusting.

This is one of those moments I am ashamed to be an American. But what with cheering the death of the uninsured and booing a gay soldier who risks his life in Iraq, I've have a number of such moments lately.

 

[Fairy1]

I'm sure you're right, Tuffy, that a special meal does little to make a condemned person's last day a happy one.

But it is the tradition and a small gesture that says the day of execution is not just another day. That the Texas legislature thought it worth their time to abolish this symbolic gesture is disgusting.

This is one of those moments I am ashamed to be an American. But what with cheering the death of the uninsured and booing a gay soldier who risks his life in Iraq, I've have a number of such moments lately.

I can't imagine anything would make a condemned person's last day a happy one but this guy's "last meal" was way over the top, much as the murder for which he was convicted. When I read what he ordered, I saw it as more of a slap-in-the-face demand rather than a legitimate request. I don't suppose the arrogance of it has had quite the impact he imagined.

I'm sorry, but I was ashamed to be an American when these white supremacist punks took it upon themselves to brutally murder an innocent man based on nothing more than the color of his skin.

I can only hope his execution will have the intended impact on those who aspire to the evil that led to it.

 

[kgeaux]

I am very "anti death penalty." I think no one should ever be sentenced to death without DNA evidence, and even more. My personal belief is that the death penalty should be an extreme measure meted out in only the most extreme cases, if at all.

Having said that, I was visiting my parents, who were then living in Toledo Bend, right across the border in Louisiana, when this crime occurred. I remember listening to the news as the body was found and identified.... I remember learning that this horrible death was the result of the victim's race....nothing else, just the color of the man's skin! I could not believe that was all there was to it, so I followed the case, and became convinced that those who were convicted were RIGHTLY convicted. There was plenty of evidence to support a guilty verdict, and a death sentence.

The victim in this case was a completely innocent man who suffered an unconscionable death at the hands of ignorant racists........and I think the amount of food "ordered" was in extreme excess of what anyone could eat in one sitting, ESPECIALLY if one was facing lethal injection in an hour or two.

I think I fall in the "give them beanie-weanies" camp. Forget the expense of the elaborate meals that will go uneaten.......give the $ the state would have spent on the "last meal" to the victim's family.

 

[Jenni979]

Brewer was vile...

Imagine the terror that Mr. Byrd felt as he was being beaten & chained to the back of that truck? It is a FACT that he was still alive as they were dragging him... He struggled to keep his head up by putting weight on his elbows. Bits of his bone were chipped away as he was slung all over Huff Creek Road at the end of 24.5 feet of chain.

He endured this pain & horror for MILES until, finally, he hit the edge of a culvert and his body literally came apart.

...and ya know what Brewer said just a few weeks before he was executed?

“As far as any regrets, no, I have no regrets. No, I’d do it all over again, to tell you the truth.”

That tells me that if this pig had ever been the chance to walk free he would have killed another innocent person.

KENNETH MCDUFF is what happens when you take away the death penalty.

 

[UdbCrzy2]

Kenneth McDuff - Texas serial killer suspected of murdering at least 14.
Kenneth McDuff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Fairy1]

Truly - some "people" should not be living and breathing on this earth - anywhere. Sadly, there are examples of that all over the world.

 

[Nova]

True that.

Kenneth McDuff is merely proof that supporters of the death penalty are acting out of fear rather then from reason. McDuff's release was an anomaly and should not have happened, but killing convicts isn't the only way to keep them from running loose to murder innocent people.

 

[Cappuccino]

KENNETH MCDUFF is what happens when you take away the death penalty.

And Cameron Todd Wallingham is what happens when you bring it back.

http://truthinjustice.org/willingham.htm

 

[Jenni979]

No, you leave them in prison where they continue to attack & murder only this time they are attacking & killing CO's.

Or they escape like the Texas 7...

Here's the deal; you don't want to be executed by the state, then don't come to a death penalty state and act a fool.

 

[Jenni979]

And Cameron Todd Wallingham is what happens when you bring it back.

http://truthinjustice.org/willingham.htm

and rightly so... He murdered his children. Let me guess, you are going to say something about the fact that the arson report has been argued, right?

By his own admission Willingham was woken by his oldest girl, he left her to die in his bedroom, didn't even attempt to search out his baby twins and bolted out of the house. He sat on the lawn doing nothing until a neighbor called him out & ONLY then did he tell her to call 911. He didn't attempt to enter the house again to search for his children, but he did make the effort to move his car so that it wouldn't be damaged by the heat from the flames.

The next night be was drinking and partying & told everyone who would listen that his $$$ worries were over because now everyone would be sending them $$$. He was more upset about the fact that he had lost sit dart set in the fire than the fact that his 3 babies were dead.

Oh yeah, and he admitted to his wife that he did it (and also a fellow inmate...) When she refused to write a letter on his bealf to the courts he told her that he was glad he killed her babies.

...and then at his execution he flipped her off and called her all sorts of lovely names.

There is ZERO proof that anyone executed has ever been innocent. Willinghan is just the anti's posterboy because one report is in dispute.

 

[UdbCrzy2]

No, you leave them in prison where they continue to attack & murder only this time they are attacking & killing CO's.

Or they escape like the Texas 7...

Here's the deal; you don't want to be executed by the state, then don't come to a death penalty state and act a fool.

My thoughts exactly. It's the law in this state. If people don't like the law then work to change it. It also helps to be a resident of the state that has the death penalty that you are wanting to abolish.

I know in Illinois they recently abolished the death penalty, but I know the residents of Illinois are glad that John Wayne Gacey was executed.

 

[Jenni979]

During the last 10 years, as the number of executions has increased, the number of murders has simultaneously dropped. Political Commentator William Tucker, in the National Review Online, remarks that even more interesting is the fact that "the most dramatic decline in murders over the last decade has been precisely in those regions that have had the most executions .... "(Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas) have performed half the nation's executions ... (and) murder rates in these 4 states have fallen faster than anywhere else in the country."

For every ONE execution in the state of Texas the murder rate (per capita)drops by over 250...

(It is also probably the reason that "murder-for-hire" costs over 4 times as much in a DP state than a non-DP state.)

 

[UdbCrzy2]

Ex-wife says Cameron Todd Willingham killed 3 kids in arson case

"My ex-husband murdered my daughters, and just before he was executed, he told me he did it," Kuykendall said.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/stat...Ex-wife-says-Cameron-Todd-Willingham-6640.ece

 

[UdbCrzy2]

Kenneth McDuff is merely proof that supporters of the death penalty are acting out of fear rather then from reason. McDuff's release was an anomaly and should not have happened, but killing convicts isn't the only way to keep them from running loose to murder innocent people.

I think most people who are not antis want to see justice served. If a jury convicts a murderer and the jury sets the punishment, most people want that punishment carried out. It takes a very long time to have a death sentence carried out with all the appeals involved. On some the sentence is never carried out.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

 

[Cortne]

Shameful story to tell about this horrific crime. About two yrs after Mr Byrd was murdered by this monster my boyfriend at the time asked me to join him in east Texas to visit his father, it may have been Lufkin. Upon arriving at his fathers work he expressed how excited he was to show us around and all the site seeing he wanted us to do. I sat in the back seat of this teal green Grand Prix maybe I dunno not really paying attention to much but before I knew it we were in Jasper. When I mentioned omg this is where James Byrd was dragged to death the father of the bf got excited as it was his intention to show us where this happened. My bf and I looked at each other with shock on our face. I sunk down in the back seat of that car so sick to my stomach. I never did bond w that father.
MAY BREWER BURN BABY BURN!!

 

[alwaysonmymind]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nat...k-offers-last-meals-for-free.html?track=icymi

A former Texas inmate who cooked the so-called last meals for hundreds of death row inmates has offered to donate his services rather than allow condemned prisoners to do without their last meal of choice.

~snip~

Price made 220 final meals, beginning in 1991, while doing time for a pair of convictions related to the abduction of his brother-in-law and a sexual assault on his ex-wife. After his release in 2003, Price wrote a cookbook about his days at the Huntsville Unit called "Meals to Die For." He now runs a restaurant at Houston County Lake in East Texas. He could not be reached by phone late Monday.

 

[alwaysonmymind]

More info on the former inmate/cook:

http://www.mealstodiefor.com/