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Matthew Reeves: Disabled inmate REFUSED last meal, wrote poem weeks before execution

The 44-year-old was put to death on Thursday, January 27, for the murder of Willie Johnson in November 1996

Death row inmate Matthew Reeves wrote a poem days before his execution that hints towards his thinking before his death. The 44-year-old was put to death at Holman Prison in Alabama on Thursday, January 27, at around 9:24 pm local time after the Supreme Court voted in its favor by lethal injection.

As per reports, Reeves was executed for the murder of Willie Johnson in November 1996 in Dallas County. Before his death, he did not have his breakfast, lunch, and last meal. He also did not make any special requests for the government. But it has been said that in December, he wrote the poem – titled ‘Dead Unless We Are Revived’, a part of which read: “Don't allow the state to use me or u as escape goat. If the public don't wake up, utilize ur vote to abolish all this pleasure killing by Alabama.”

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In his poem, shared on Twitter by Lee Hedgepeth, a digital reporter @CBS_42, Reeves continued, “Generations of a lot of sons of mothers, struggling will be victims of murders, fighting day by day to never be the victim to this killing machine. U want me dead but don't know why, my color, my past, someone word, can u picture me being innocent, or did you just stereotype me,” before he concluded: “This system is not full proof, just think if you on protect the project houses, trailor park, shot gun houses, and brick houses, u too will be defending ur self, one day can equate to a sentence of eternal sleep.”

Reeves' lawyers had earlier argued that he’s intellectually disabled and the state should have made him understand the execution methods as well as help him in choosing a new execution method involving nitrogen. But when prosecution and defense experts carried a test on Reeves for intellectual disability, they reportedly found his IQ in the high 60s or low 70s. Last month, a federal court stated that state officials were “on notice that Reeves had IQ scores in the high 60s or low 70s, subaverage intellectual functioning, and had been found to be functionally illiterate…”

But John Palombi, a lawyer for Reeves, did not agree with the ruling and after his death said in a statement, “Matthew Reeves is unquestionably intellectually disabled and unquestionably functionally illiterate. The immense authority of the Supreme Court should be used to protect its citizens, not to strip them of their rights without explanation.”

A lot of people reacted online after his execution and also after the release of his poem. A user tweeted, “I thought he couldn't read or write or understand anything. That's the argument why he shouldn't be accountable for robbery and murder, right?” The second one said, “Again can’t be a simpleton if he can write poetry.” “Matthew Reeves shot a man in the neck for $360 in cold  blood and then celebrated what he had done at a party the same night while still covered in his victim's blood,” the third user added.