Maybe it can help people humanise them a bit? Given another 20-30 years of small things like this, maybe the US could even follow the rest of the developed world and stop executions

Don’t you feel anything reading through these? It doesn’t remind you of the humanity of these people?

The question still stands. Why does the state bother to record them? What purpose does it serve for the pro capital punishment government to humanize those it executes?

The boring answer is that it doesn't serve as pro-capital punishment propaganda.

It is simply a tradition to give the condemned a public last statement. It has foundations in transparency and giving token dignity to the condemned.

It is much preferable to disappearing people to black sites with no records.

I’m too lazy to research this, but maybe some do-gooder managed to push it through legislation at some point so now they have to?

Not everything is a strategic move on the political chess board.

It is part of the ritual.

Probably a state law or administrative policy established this practice as both proof that the execution followed appropriate and customary practices as well as a sense of closure for the community/victims.