Philip Workman’s last request before execution was a pizza to be given to a homeless person. From CNN:
*Riverbend Maximum Security Institution refused, said Riverbend spokeswoman Dorinda Carter.
“We can get some special things for the inmate but the taxpayers don’t really give us permission to donate to charity,” Carter said.*
Today’s headline: Executed man’s request honored: pizzas for all
From the article:
*
Homeless shelters across Nashville were inundated with donated pizzas all Wednesday.*
150 pies to Rescue Mission from a group of friends who pitched in $1200
17+ pizzas for a teen center
PITA sent 15 veggie pies to Rescue Mission
Beautiful. Some days I love the humans.
Heh. He may have made the request to be a thorn, or out of genuine concern. Either way, the homeless get pizza, so for today, something was done right.
I would hardly call that doing something right. Pizza is junk food! Why not give them all caesar salads with low-fat dressing? Now that would be doing something right in the world.
If one is homeless and not guaranteed to be eating well or often why on earth would they want low fat anything?
Pizzas are not junk - they have cheese, vegetables and sometimes meat. Like all foods, if you eat them constantly then you will experience health problems. Pizza on it’s own is not problematic.
I think it was nice, but I also have to defend the prison. It is generally (almost always IME) against the law for govenment entities to contribute to charities. It creates an appearance of governmental favoritism (why pizzas for the homeless and not for the abused women or the orphans or the poor?) and, more importantly, it probably is an unconstitutional “gift of public funds”. (Public officials may not make gifts out of the public purse.) A group of employees can decide to do something charitable, up to and including yearly United Way giving campaigns, but “the government” can’t.
So I wouldn’t read anything negative into the Prison’s refusal to honor that request. Legally, they probably couldn’t.
So you would rather the prison officials give a pizza to a dead man rather than a live, needy one. Noted. Score: Red Tape: 1 Common Sense and Decency: **0 **
Every person who donated money or pizzas to the situational cause was protesting arbitrary beaucracy. Same guard who fetched the last meal could have just as easily handed it off to a man on the street.
Grand, selfless, charitable gesture by a large number of like-minded people. Kudos to all who donated.
Re-read my thread and point out to me – to all of us – where I said ANYTHING about my own preference or what I would “rather” see happen. What I said is that donation to charities by government entities are almost laways illegal and sometimes unconstitutional. Score: Knee-Jerking: 1 Reading Comprehension: 0
Underlining mine. Is that when those whom someone in power has deemed attractive rule, or when Beaucarnea rules? Cos if it’s the second, I think Ragallag the Axe and Winston Smith want some words with you.
Well, kind of. Everyone is going “Awwww” when the man is, I guess, a cop killer. It’s pretty bizarre to me, at least. Throw in a bunch of uncertainty surrounding the death penalty and it is no longer a cut and dried pizza for some homeless dude.
We have a tradition (not a legal right; merely a tradition) of allowing an inmate to select his final meal. Matters not if the meal is fish and chips, chicken and waffles, or prime and a baked potato- an employee of the prison is dispatched to fetch the meal of the inmate’s choosing.
A meal, which in my opinion, is wasted on a dying man. Might as well hand the meal to someone one not convicted of a heinous crime.
I am not advocating anarchy. I am not recommending that we chuck our hard won laws and regulations in favor of “screwing the man”. A pizza can be had for five bucks, and the guard could have handed the box out the cruiser window to a hungry citizen. Doesn’t seem like a big deal; though the national press clearly feels that the story and the outcome is a very big deal.
No amount of good intentions or good deeds can replace the life of police officer Ronald Oliver who was killed during the robbery. The small gesture of requesting a pizza for a homeless person was just that: a small gesture.
But the public at large turned the last wish into a large gesture, and whether or not the individuals donating were protesting the death penalty, representing a belief in Workman’s innocence, or protesting arbitrary decision to deny a homeless man a pizza the result was the same: whole bunch of homeless people got to eat last Wednesday.
. . . So long as it doesn’t cost the taxpayer more than 20 small, and – this is the crucial part – so long as it’s actually for the inmate, since he is the one the State has a duty to house and feed.
If it’s wasted on a dying man, that’s an argument for doing away with the tradition altogether, not for giving the meal to someone else.
No, the person dispatched for the pizza cannot buy it with taxpayer money and then give it away. I’m honestly not sure which part of They can’t do that; it would be against the law you are having trouble with.
Beaucarnea so you’re of the opinion law enforcement and other government employees should only obey the laws that they do not deem to be “arbitrary?” It’s sort of you know, one of the big complaints people have about government employees, that they often act as though they are above the law. The last thing we need is regular citizens advocating they should only follow the laws they like.
Lucky for all involved that I was not the prison employee chosen to fetch the last meal, or I might have handed a pizza to a homeless man, and such terrifying chaos would have ensued that only martial law could have restored order.
Lucky again that an officer arrested danger to society Sylvia Stayton for plugging parking meters.
Jodi, my opinion about the prison officials’ refusal to honor the request is just that: an opinion. The resulting outpouring of donations from the public was far more productive than one measly pizza anyway, so you and I are both happy. Justice was served, and hungry people were fed. Your law degree is well-earned, and your point taken.
