Death row inmate requests epic last meal after failed execution appeal

A Georgia man set to die by lethal injection on Tuesday has made a lavish last meal request before he faces his death sentence for the murder of his sister-in-law.

Keith Leroy Tharpe, 59, is set to be executed by lethal injection in Georgia on Tuesday, according to Fox News.

The Georgia Department of Corrections announced in a press release that the inmate “requested a last meal of three spicy chicken breasts, roast beef sandwich with sauce, fish sandwich, tater logs, onion rings, apple pie, and a vanilla milkshake.”

Tharpe was originally scheduled to be executed on September 26, 2017, but the Supreme Court granted the convicted killer a temporary stay hours after the planned time had passed, the Huffington Post reports.

Tharpe and his lawyers argue that one of the jurors who convicted Tharpe was influenced by racial bias, and demanded that the case be re-examined, according to a Time magazine report. In addition, Tharpe’s defense argued that the death row inmate’s IQ was low enough that he may not have understood the severity of his actions.

In January, according to the Associated Press, the justices heading the appeal in Atlanta voted 6-3 to order the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to take another look at the case on the basis of racial bias.

In 1998, Tharpe’s legal team interviewed Barney Gattie, a white juror in Tharpe’s trial who used racial slurs and questioned “if black people even have souls,” according to court filings obtained by the AP. However, the controversial juror later said it wasn’t racism that led him to vote for the death penalty in Tharpe’s case, but the evidence against him.

On April 3, 2018, a federal appeals court rejected the arguments, effectively reinstating the execution scheduled to take place on Tuesday.

Tharpe was sentenced to death after being convicted of killing his sister-in-law, Jacquelin Freeman, on September 25, 1990.

[Feature photo: Georgia Department of Corrections]