Thirty inmates have been executed in the United States this year, and eight more executions are scheduled, mostly in Texas and Florida. Now the military wants to broadcast one. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Thursday that officials will livestream the firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, set for Dec. 3.
The plan comes as the country wrestles with how, and whether, it kills people in the name of the law. A botched lethal injection in Tennessee and the Pentagon's decision have each prompted fresh calls to abolish the death penalty. They've also led some supporters to spell out what they believe a humane government execution should look like.
A Shrinking Consensus
When a court sentenced Christa Pike to die in 1996 after convicting her of murdering a classmate, 37 states had capital punishment and yearly executions were climbing. Thirty years later, 10 states have abolished the penalty, and executions haven't returned to their late-1990s peak. Nearly half of states have abolished it, while a handful carry out most executions.
Public opinion is less clear than the headline figures suggest. A Pew Research Center poll conducted in July found that about two-thirds of U.S. adults consider the death penalty morally justified for people convicted of murder. But about 6 in 10 said it doesn't deter crime, and about 7 in 10 said there's some risk an innocent person could be executed. Gallup's trend shows support has fallen considerably since the 1990s.
Even Allies Recoil
The livestream announcement surprised some supporters of capital punishment. Vice President JD Vance questioned Friday whether it would happen, adding that he wouldn't watch. Retiring North Carolina Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis called it "beyond disgusting." Idaho Republican Rep. Bruce Skaug, who wrote the law that made the firing squad that state's primary execution method, said the Pentagon's move was "a difficult one for me to swallow." Skaug said he believes executions should be rare, but when a court imposes the punishment, it's the government's duty to "carry it out properly."
That framing carries a stark irony. After Pike survived an attempted execution on Oct. 1, Tennessee's Republican legislators didn't retreat from the death penalty. Instead, they considered bringing back the electric chair or allowing firing squads.
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, condemned the military's plan in a statement Friday. "This decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered," he said. The bishops and several mainline Protestant denominations ground their opposition in redemption and the "sanctity of life." The Southern Baptist Convention and the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod support capital punishment, citing biblical passages on retributive justice.
Victims' Families Divided
Families of victims don't speak with one voice. The family of Colleen Slemmer, whom Pike was convicted of killing, supports Pike's execution. Rachel Sutphin, a Presbyterian pastor whose father was killed while serving as a sheriff's deputy, opposes the death penalty. Virginia executed the man convicted of killing him in 2017, making him the state's last execution. Sutphin helped a coalition persuade the state to abolish capital punishment in 2021.
She said the Pentagon's announcement shocked her so much that it might draw her back into advocacy. "This place where (in) the name of revenge, taking an eye for an eye, has become socially acceptable and has almost become a form of entertainment -- that very much concerns me," Sutphin said.
Who Watches, and Who Answers
Public executions were common in the United States from the Revolution into the 20th century, and people sometimes treated them as mass entertainment. The country hasn't held one since the late 1930s. Brenner Fissell, vice president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said public executions "are seen by most civilized societies as grotesque and barbaric." Almost every European nation has abolished capital punishment. Fissell knows of no legal obstacle to livestreaming Hasan's execution. "You don't have a right to a secret death," he said.
Robert Blecker, a professor emeritus at New York Law School who considers the penalty appropriate for a few of the worst criminals, argues that transparency forces accountability. "Shouldn't the people have access to what's being done in their name?" he said. "If we can't stomach and can't tolerate it, then abolish it."
Why This Matters: The livestream debate raises a question the country has long avoided: what does it mean when the state kills and the public looks away? Even defenders of the penalty are flinching at the prospect of seeing it. The practical record is troubling, too. By wide margins, Americans doubt executions deter crime and believe an innocent person could be put to death. A botched lethal injection in Tennessee shows the human cost when the machinery fails. Executions are concentrated in a few states, and nearly half have abolished the practice; the penalty looks less like a national consensus and more like a regional outlier. Whether broadcast or hidden, executions carried out in the public's name demand public scrutiny, and that scrutiny keeps leading back to the case for ending them.