Professor Deborah Denno was quoted in a WFIN News article that discussed the tradition of last meals.
The last meal for condemned prison inmates has become a thing of lore over the years as details about their gruesome crimes and culinary preferences in their final hours have garnered widespread media attention.
…
Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham University School of Law in New York City, said the death penalty and last meal intertwine religion and retribution.
“I don’t think it’s a stretch to compare the last meal to the Last Supper or it having some kind of religious element because it is a ritual,” she told Fox News Digital. “It is kind of a final goodbye.”
…
The granting of a last meal is possibly a last humane gesture, Denno said.
“It’s a way of our recognizing that no matter what somebody has done that they’re still a human and they’re going to die soon,” she said. “There’s some humanity in that.”