The Pentagon stated it will livestream the military execution of Nidal Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. Hasan, 56, has been on military death row since his 2013 conviction. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that President Trump approved the execution by firing squad, scheduled for the afternoon of December 3 at Fort Hood. If carried out as planned, this would mark the first military firing squad execution since World War II.
The announcement of a livestreamed execution has drawn significant attention from legal experts and advocacy groups. Michael Radelet, a professor emeritus studying capital punishment, noted that legal challenges could delay the execution for years, and that outside groups might contest the livestream plans themselves. The Death Penalty Information Center stated it is unaware of any regulation or historical precedent for a U.S. military execution to be livestreamed or made widely available to the public.
The last prominent public execution in the United States occurred in 1936, when Rainey Bethea was hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky. Approximately 20,000 people attended the event, which was treated as a festive occasion with vendors selling food and beverages. The spectacle prompted significant public backlash over the perceived barbarity of executions. Kentucky subsequently held a semipublic execution in a prison yard the following year before outlawing public executions in 1938.
Experts suggest that public executions fell out of favor for two main reasons: they were no longer believed to be effective crime deterrents, and authorities worried that visible executions could generate opposition to capital punishment. Capital punishment scholars note that executions have become increasingly private over decades, with some states conducting them in the middle of the night and limiting media access. Critics of the plan, including Amnesty International, argue that the livestreamed execution represents a step backward in human rights standards. Some observers, however, speculate that graphic visibility of the execution could further reduce public support for the death penalty, which is already at a five-decade low.
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