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Man ordered final death row meal so controversial that no one gets one anymore

Home> News> Crime

Published 17:23 1 Jun 2025 GMT+1

Man ordered final death row meal so controversial that no one gets one anymore

Lawrence Russell Brewer is the reason why Texas death row inmates don't get a last meal

Joe Harker

Joe Harker

Featured Image Credit: Texas Department of Justice

Topics: US News, Crime, Death Row

Joe Harker
Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

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@MrJoeHarker

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A man on death row in Texas ended up being so controversial about his death row meal that the US state decided to scrap the practice altogether.

In many places which still carry out the death penalty the condemned individual is allowed to dine on a last meal of their choosing, placing their request for the final thing they'll get to eat before their appointment with the executioner.

However, Texas scrapped the tradition over a decade ago after a man named Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed on 21 September, 2011.

He'd been sentenced to death for killing a man named James Byrd Jr. by dragging him behind his vehicle for three miles in 1998, with Brewer and his accomplice John King being sentenced to death and Shawn Berry sentenced to life in prison.

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The practices of giving death row inmates a last meal of their choosing had been done in Texas since 1924, but Brewer's order and what he did with it ended the decades-long tradition.

Lawrence Russell Brewer ordered a controversial final meal on death row (Buck Kelly/Getty Images)
Lawrence Russell Brewer ordered a controversial final meal on death row (Buck Kelly/Getty Images)

According to the Houston Chronicle, Brewer's order was:


  • A bowl of fried okra with ketchup
  • Two chicken steaks, with gravy and onions
  • Cheese omelette with ground beef, jalapenos and bell peppers
  • Triple meat bacon cheeseburger
  • Three fajitas
  • 1lb of barbecue
  • Half a loaf of white bread
  • Pizza meat lover's special
  • Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream, one pint
  • Slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts
  • Three root beers

That's a gargantuan amount of food and when the veritable feast was put before the death row inmate he refused to eat a bite, telling prison staff he wasn't feeling hungry.

John Whitmire, who these days is mayor of Houston, scrapped the last meal after Brewer refused to eat what he'd ordered (Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
John Whitmire, who these days is mayor of Houston, scrapped the last meal after Brewer refused to eat what he'd ordered (Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)

It was the last straw for Texas in getting rid of the right to a last meal and Texas state senator John Whitmire denounced Brewer's actions as trying to 'make a mockery out of the process'.

He managed to get the practice dropped, so now nobody on death row in Texas gets a last meal.

Earlier that same year another person on death row in Texas ordered what has been described as the 'most elaborate' last meal.

Steven Woods, executed on 13 September, 2011, ordered a kilogram of bacon, a four meat pizza, four fried chicken breasts, five fried chicken steaks, two bacon hamburgers on french toast, fries, a dozen garlic breadsticks with marinara and a pint of ice cream.

To wash his feast down he asked for a double helping of Pepsi, root beer, sweet tea and Mountain Dew.

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