“John Coffey you have been condemned to die in the electric chair by a jury of your appeal sentenced and posed by a judge in good standing in this state. Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out?”
This is what Paul Edgecomb, played by Tom Hanks, says to John Coffey, played by the late Micheal Clarke Duncan, in the very last scene of the critically acclaimed movie the Green Mile. A heartbreaking scene played magnificently by all the actors that it’s almost haunting.
After preparing John Coffey for the electric chair, Paul Edgecomb continues his rehearsed sentences: “John Coffey, electricity shall now be passed through your body until you are dead in accordance with the state law. May God have mercy on your soul.”
The Death Sentence
The words that were spoken by Tom Hanks have been spoken by many prison guards in real life. These words are part of the ritual that comes with the execution of the death penalty, it is the very last stage of the ritual. However, the ritual begins with the following question: ‘What do you want to eat as your last meal?’
In the summer of 2017, my family and I were lucky enough to visit the state of California in the USA. When we visited San Francisco we drove past the nearby San Quentin State Prison, which was the state’s only death row for male inmates until a few months ago. Just the thought of knowing there were men there waiting for their death sentence was quite scary but also somewhere fascinating.
We also of course visited the world’s most famous prison, Alcatraz. And even though there was no death row in this prison, the impression you got from the place made that scary and fascinating feeling even more real. I became fascinated by prison stories and thus started watching movies like Escape from Alcatraz, The Shawshank Redemption, and Green Mile. The live album of Johnny Cash's ‘At San Quentin’ was on constant repeat.
San Quentin, you've been livin' hell to me.
You've hosted me since nineteen sixty three
I've seen 'em come and go and I've seen 'em die.
And long ago I stopped askin' why
Johnny Cash - San Quentin
But what perhaps fascinated me the most were the last meals that prisoners chose before their death penalty. Most people who end up with a death penalty sentence are, well, one brick short of a full load to say the least. And so, their choices were sometimes very peculiar. This week we will look into the history of this weird ritual and highlight some of the prisoner’s choices. On y va!
History
The history of the Death Row Meal is as old as the existence of humankind. Ancient records of multiple civilizations show that some form of the last meal was integrated into their societies. For example, people that were about to be executed in France received a single glass of rum or in England, in the 16th century, it was custom that the inmate shared his last meal with his/her executioner.
Aztecs, Hurons, Romans, and Greeks all participated in some form of last meal. The Aztecs gave food to those who were offered as a human sacrifice since the offerings had to be rich in taste and nutritive to the gods. The American colonials, many years later, would feast with their to-be-executed prisoners as a sort of "reconciliation.” This reconciliation comes from a religious background.
Christianity
Chances are quite high that you might have thought about the painting of Leonardo Da Vinci, the Last Supper while reading the preceding paragraphs. This is perhaps the most famous Last Meal in the world. Europeans drew influence from this Christian legend.
“The Last Supper of Christ is a symbolic story since it signifies unity, the forgiveness of sin, and gratitude for salvation through the sacrifice of execution,” according to Linda Ross Meyer, author of The Justice of Mercy. During the Middle Ages, Europe was very religious, Christianity was the dominant religion at that time. This symbolic meaning was very appealing to the Europeans at that time since one of the 10 Commandments of God is: “You shall not kill.”
But…?
As you can imagine, executing someone could bring a lot of mixed feelings to the executioner. And so, Christian priests decided that killing a person was ‘okay’ with God as long as the to-be executed and the executioner could break bread with each other. This ‘excuse’ was never written down somewhere as law and so it became more of a ritual.
Each country took a different turn on this ‘tradition.’ As remarked before, France served rum and England made sure both parties ate with each other. However, England took it a bit further during the 18th century.
Treated like a King
In London, it became custom for the favored or better-off prisoners to be allowed to host a party with food, drinks, and outside guests the night before they were hanged. But it didn’t stop there. The day after, when the actual execution would take place, the prisoner was treated again. The prisoner had to hike three miles from Newgate Prison to the gallows at Tyburn Fair. During the hike, a stop would be made at a pub in order to allow the to-be to execute the following customary: ‘Great bowl of ale to drink at their pleasure, as their last refreshment of life.’
‘Merica!
The version of the Last Meal we know nowadays is very Americanized. Emeline Meaker was the very first woman who was legally executed in the state of Vermont in 1883. Since then the list of legally executed in the US has been ever-growing. In the next sector, we will highlight some of the most bizarre and remarkable Last Meal requests.
Before we begin I want to mention the study done by Kevin M. Kniffin and Brian Wansink of Cornell University in 2013 who studied the significance of death row inmates’ last meal choices. They researched if the meal itself means something which led to remarkable insights. The pair looked at 247 different last meal recipients, of which 24 professed innocence and 60 apologized for wrongdoing.
Those who pled innocence were more likely to refuse their last meal: “[Inmates] who denied guilt were 2.7 times as likely to decline a last meal than people who admitted guilt (29% versus 8%).” Those who admitted their wrongdoings appeared to be more ‘hungry’ since they were “at peace.” These people also ate heavier meals, "request[ing] 34% more calories of food than the rest of the sample." And one last observation: "Those who denied guilt also tended to eat significantly fewer brand-name food items.”
Last Bits
Ronnie Lee Gardner
First up is Ronnie Lee Gardner who received the death penalty for killing a man during an attempted escape from a courthouse in 1985. On June 15 2010 Garnder ate his last meal which featured steak, lobster tail, apple pie, vanilla ice cream, and 7-Up. This he ate before starting a 48-hours fast while watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and reading Divine Justice by David Baldacci. After that, he walked voluntarily to his place of execution.
Victor Harry Freguer
Ronnie Lee Gardner made a pretty big spectacle of it. One who did the opposite was the convicted murderer Victor Feguer. He was the last person put to death in the state of Iowa and had perhaps the most peaceful request for his last meal. Feguer requested a single black olive with the pit still in it. He told the guards he hoped an olive tree would sprout from his grave “as a sign of peace.” This did not happen, yet.
James Edward Smith
The request of James Edward Smith has to be one of the most bizarre. The reason he got the death penalty was that he shot and killed Larry Don Rohus while robbing the Union Life Insurance Company.
Smith’s mother, Alexine Hamilton, defended her son insisting that he was brainwashed from practicing black magic and voodooism. Prior to his arrest, Smith claimed that he took part in six ritualistic killings where he sacrificed, beheaded, and threw off a bridge a one-year-old child.
Following his black magic steps, he requested rhaeakunda dirt which is associated with voodoo rituals for his last meal. He wanted to use it to mark his body so that his soul would move on and not stay on Earth as a ghost. This request was, of course, turned down and instead of dirt he received strawberry yogurt.
Adolf Eichmann
Let’s close this section with the most famous criminal that was sentenced to death: Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust. He fled to Argentina after the Second World War but was captured by Nazi Hunter Fritz Bauer in 1960. On December 15, 1961, Eichmann was found guilty and sentenced to death for crimes against the Jews, crimes against humanity, and a war crime. On the night of the 31st of May and the 1st of June Eichmann was hanged in Ramla, Israel.
Eichmann, just like any other criminal, was granted the wish of requesting a special meal before his death. However, Eichmann didn’t order anything special except a bottle of Carmel red wine (a Jewish wine nevertheless) with the usual prison food of cheese, bread, olives, and tea. He drank about half of the bottle.
Modern Last Meals
Today, the death penalty is not that custom anymore. The USA, Japan, and South Korea are the only democracies among the fifty-eight countries in the world that still employ the death penalty. In Japan, the condemned won’t know when he will be executed until the day itself. These countries still offer some sort of last meal.
"The last meal as a tradition is really a way of showing humanity between the caregivers of people on death row who are completely powerless and who come to care about these people — they feel complicit and conflicted. The last meal is a way to offer, in a very, very small way, a show of kindness and generosity.”
If you have made it to the very end of this Edit, let us know what you would request as your last meal! Would it be something extravagant or basic like a Double Whopper?