i think that kind of sucks. i agree that the dude in this article took advantage but to deny everyone in the future the privilege is not nice. the article says that "some states require the meal within a specific time period, allow multiple 'final' meals, restrict it to one or impose 'a vast number of conditions'..." which i do think is a good policy. maybe we can allow a person three special last meals, and if they don't eat the first one, or if they do crappy stuff with it, they don't get any of their remaining two.
i get that we only execute really bad people (well, we try to anyway). and usually the crimes have to be pretty gruesome of us to kill them for it. violent crimes, nothing like tax evasion or theft or anything like that. so of course you can argue that we shouldn't give them any privileges at all, not even a request of a last meal. but just cause they're messed up doesn't mean we have to be also.
the last meals project features some interesting last meals. very simple and sad. actually, they're pathetic because they are so simple. all john r thompson wanted was a glass of fresh squeezed oj. doesn't that kind of make you want to cry? gerald lee mitchell wanted one bag of assorted jolly ranchers. i don't know why he wanted them, and i can think of some really twisted reasons, but maybe those were his favorite candies as a child and as he sucked on each one in the hours leading up to his death, he thought about that one time he was so was so scared by that rabid dog that he peed his pants. and his dad, rather than getting mad like he always did, hugged his son, said that it was okay, and slipped him a jolly rancher or two. maybe he thought about the last halloween with his mom. he wanted to be a barnyard animal, but all they had was his brother's old green sweatshirt so his mom made him a frog costume. gerald was so mad; who wants to be a frog?! he made such a fuss about it but his mom dragged him door to door anyway. and the next day she ran away with their neighbor's husband. at seven years old, all gerald could think was that if only he hadn't told his mom he hated that costume she wouldn't have left him.
...i mean, who knows?
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