Georgia Won't Give Inmate Beer With Last Meal

Before its last execution, Georgia rejected a plea for mercy from the Pope. Ahead of its next one, it has rejected a plea for beer from the condemned. Marcus Ray Johnson is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7pm Thursday and prison officials have denied his request to have a final six-pack of beer as his last meal because alcohol is contraband, Reuters reports. NBC News reports that Johnson has decided to have the same meal as other death row inmates Thursday evening instead: baked fish, cheese grits, beans, coleslaw, cookies, and fruit punch. Johnson, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1994 stabbing murder of a woman he met in a bar. His lawyers argue the evidence is flimsy and that Georgia will be executing an innocent man, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (Texas has stopped serving special last meals to inmates about to be executed.)