Texas draws the line on death row last meals

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I don't think you can get a $50 Steak at Mortons but, it's a national chain so no need to fly one in from NYC. I'm sure there is one in Texas. Also it would probably pretty high on my list of Last Meals.

They do.

Most people who get death get it for a botched robbery.

Do you have any statistics for that? It does sound plausible that a great many would get it for killing someone during a robbery, but I don't see that killing someone during a robbery makes it a "botched" robbery.

The one I knew who was executed was in a stolen car when it broke down along with his older brother, one or two sisters, and someone else. Someone stopped and helped them fix it. After he was through helping, the older brother held him down while the one I knew hit him over the head with a jack until he was dead.

Like I said earlier, I drove his school bus. The older brother would often stand outside the school bus and try to put a hex on me. I just laughed at him for that.

No botched robbery on that one. They did rob him, but that was after the victim was dead.

I used to know another pair of brothers who committed a murder as well. In that case, the one brother hired the other to kill his wife which he did. The one who performed the murder committed suicide in jail awaiting trial. The husband was found not guilty because the jury didn't feel like the prosecution proved the case. Later he fled the country when facing federal charges related to the murder and was captured in Europe and jailed until he was eventually returned. Under the extradition agreement with the European country where he was captured and held, he pled guilty to other charges and went to prison. He was released about a year ago.

No robbery on that one, either.

http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/dr_executed_offenders.html contains a list of the executions in Texas since 1982 along with statements about the crimes for which they were executed.

Just a random sampling hasn't turned up any botched robberies.

The one I knew is number 61 on the list and his brother is number 62 on the list.

Number 320 on the list, Cameron Todd Willingham, is pretty controversial. There is plenty of reasonable doubt about whether or not the investigation of the house fire was seriously botched. Read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Todd_Willingham. It's quite likely that he was innocent.

The intention is robbery and it is often botched when they actually kill someone. Not that there are not other cases where they choose to kill the victim after the robbery. At any rate these tend to be overrepresented when it comes to death and LWOPP cases.

Well, perhaps I mean LWOPP cases as they avoid sentencing people to death for Felony Murder and prefer LWOPP. However, it appears clear that there is a bias when it comes to victims unknown to the perpetrator. That is, if the victim is unknown to the perpetrator, there is more likely a death penalty.