Film examines last meals of death row inmates

Brut America

Deep-fried shrimp. Pizzas. Mint Ice Cream. Last meals on death row are mythically extravagant.    These Australian filmmakers recreated the last meals of death row inmates, and learned something surprising about Capital punishment.

Transcript

00:00Transcribed by ESO. Translated by —

00:30The fantasy is that you're on death row, you can order mountains of food, whatever you

00:38want.

00:39The reality is most states have a cap, a limit on how much you can spend.

00:44You say you order fish, you get the equivalent that's in the prison cafeteria.

01:06We probably had this perception that when someone's going to be executed, every legal

01:10stone has been unturned.

01:12Everything's been done, they've made sure that the case is airtight, that kind of thing,

01:17and it's just not that case at all.

01:19It's really disturbing.

01:39It's obviously easy when it's a Ted Bundy or a John Wayne Gacy to not feel anything.

01:43But then when you start looking at the other side of the case, it's based on an eyewitness

01:49testimony or some kind of science like bite marks.

01:53That's completely bogus.

01:54And you're like, they've executed someone based on this evidence.

01:58And it's clearly erroneous.

02:07It's definitely not uncommon for death row inmates to not eat their last meals.

02:13Often families invited in and they might eat the meal.

02:16Perhaps wardens, prison guards, that sort of thing.

02:19Much is made of that particular case in Texas where, this is Lawrence Russell Brewer, where

02:24he didn't eat the meal and they're sort of seeing it as a political stance, which maybe

02:31it wasn't.

03:02Just log on to Netflix and see every documentary that's being made about true crime and serial

03:09killers.

03:10There's a new Ted Bundy film at basically every film festival.

03:14There is a fascination with death row and there's plenty of death row content.

03:18It's usually from the side of this person absolutely deserves to die.

03:22It's not sexy to look at people who shouldn't have been executed.

03:25Let's put it that way.

03:26I think finally, the United States should have another look at this death penalty thing.

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