Fox News Flash top headlines for May 1
Fox News Flash top headlines for May 1 are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com
Death row inmates in Texas will no longer have their final written words shared with the public following a state Democratic lawmaker’s outrage over prison officials relaying the last statement of a white supremacist executed last week.
Prison officials will now only publicly relay the verbal comments the condemned make in the execution chamber, said Bryan Collier, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Any written statements will be stored with their belongings after their execution.
DEATH-ROW INMATE SAYS CRYPTIC LAST WORDS BEFORE FIGHT BREAKS OUT AT EXECUTION
The policy’s abrupt halt comes less than 24 hours after state Sen. John Whitmire of Houston chastised prison officials Monday for reading John William King's final written statement after he was executed. King, who was white, was executed for the 1998 dragging death of James Byrd Jr., a black man.
"If a death row inmate has something to say to the public or victims, let him or her say it when they are strapped to the gurney," Whitmire wrote in a letter to prison officials.
Whitemire's outrage also led to death row inmates to no longer be allowed to choose their last meals after an extensive final dining request in 2011. (Associated Press)
King had said “no” when a warden asked whether he had any last words before receiving lethal injection. His final statement read: "Capital punishment: Them without the capital get the punishment."
He’s not the first condemned Texas inmate to not speak any final words but still prepare a statement later released by the prison system.
"We didn't expect anything positive to come out of his mouth," Byrd's sister, Louvon Harris, told the Houston Chronicle. "If he had a heart, he would have said his final words to the family, which he did not.”
John William King answered "no" when a warden asked whether he had any last words. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP)
While some of the state’s death row inmates have expressed remorse with their spoken last words, there have been many others who have caused a stir.
John David Battaglia, 62, was executed in February 2018 for killing his two young daughters, the Dallas Morning News reported at the time. In his last words before the lethal injection, he taunted his ex-wife, saying, "Well, hi, Mary Jean. I'll see y'all later. Bye. Go ahead, please."
Billie Wayne Coble, a 70-year-old executed earlier this year, cryptically said, "That'll be $5" before a fight broke out in the death chamber witness area.
Rosendo Rodriguez III, known as the “suitcase killer,” said, "The state may have my body but they never had my soul," before his execution in March 2018. The 38-year-old also urged the boycott of Texas businesses to pressure the state into ending the death penalty, according to the Texas Tribune.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The controversy over the last written statements isn’t the only death row policy Whitmire’s outrage has changed.
Texas death row inmates no longer choose their last meals after Whitmire’s ire over the dining request of a condemned man who ordered an extensive final meal and ate none of it in 2011. It included 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.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The hottest stories ripped from the headlines, from crime to courts, legal and scandal.
