13 dead at Fort Hood, and now the Pentagon wants a livestream of the execution
The Army plans to execute Nidal Hasan by firing squad on December 3 at the base where he killed 13 people. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says viewers should see the consequences, but the Pentagon has yet to explain who can watch.
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Oct 9, 06:00 UTC ·
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The Pentagon plans to livestream the Army's firing-squad execution of Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan, making the punishment an unprecedented broadcast event if it proceeds. [1][2]
Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, is scheduled to be executed on December 3 at Fort Hood, the Texas military base where his 2009 attack killed 13 people and injured 32. A military jury sentenced him to death in 2013 after convicting him of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder. [1][2]
An unnamed Pentagon official told Reuters that the execution would be livestreamed and that details would follow. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also confirmed the plan in a post on X. It would be the first public transmission of a US execution, taking a punishment long conducted away from public view and giving it an audience beyond those present. [1]
Hegseth said people should be able to watch so they understand that such acts carry serious consequences. He called the choice of a firing squad at Fort Hood on a Thursday at one p.m. a "no-brainer". Reuters reported that the chosen day, time and location approximate those of the shooting. [1]
The Pentagon has not described who will be allowed to watch, which platform will carry the stream or how much of the proceedings viewers will see. The execution could also be delayed by further legal action. The announcement establishes a plan to broadcast, rather than settled viewing arrangements or an assured December 3 execution. [1][2]
Approval to execute, a decision to broadcast
President Donald Trump approved Hasan's execution on Hegseth's recommendation, according to the Pentagon. Asked about the livestream, the White House referred questions to the Defense Department and did not say whether Trump supported broadcasting the execution. [1][2]
That leaves Hegseth as the public voice for the broadcast's purpose. His explanation is that watching the punishment will make its consequences understood. It is an argument for using the execution itself as a message, with the government choosing both the method of death and the means of displaying it. [1]
The location reinforces that message. Hasan is to be executed at the base where he committed the murders, and the chosen day, time and location approximate those of the attack, Reuters reported. [1]
Jonathan Lurie, an author and historian of military justice, said there were no compelling reasons to make the execution public. "What's the point of it? Who would want to see that?" he said. [1]
His objection goes to the extra step the Pentagon is taking. Hasan's death sentence, Trump's approval and the planned execution already carry the state's punishment. Broadcasting adds a separate government decision about who should witness that punishment and why.
For viewers, the setting would also be unusual: the military proposes to show an execution carried out on its own base, in a case arising from an attack on that base. The Army would be administering the sentence while the Pentagon arranged its transmission. [1][2]
A break with decades of practice
The last legally sanctioned public execution in the United States took place in 1936, according to Reuters. Courts have previously blocked efforts by media organisations to televise US executions. The Pentagon's proposal would put the government behind a broadcast of the kind those efforts failed to secure. [1]
A livestream also changes what public witnessing can mean. People need not gather at the execution site to watch. The reach of this event will depend on the Pentagon's access rules, making those rules central to the policy rather than a small technical detail.
The execution method would itself mark a return to a practice the US military has not used for decades. Its last known firing-squad executions were in 1945, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, as reported by Reuters. [1]
The last US military execution by any method was in 1961, when Army Private John Bennett was hanged, according to the Associated Press. Hasan's scheduled execution would therefore end a long gap in military executions while introducing a new way of showing one. [2]
The decision comes during renewed scrutiny of how governments carry out death sentences. Reuters reported that the Trump administration recently added firing squads, electrocution and gas asphyxiation as methods for the gravest federal crimes, partly because of difficulties obtaining lethal-injection drugs and problems carrying out injections. [1]
That debate has sharpened after Tennessee's attempted lethal injection of death-row prisoner Christa Pike went wrong. Her lawyers said she awoke in hospital angry and confused and remained very sick, according to Reuters. [1]
A possible challenge in civilian court
Eugene Fidell, a military-law expert who lectures at Yale Law School, said livestreaming an execution would be extremely strange. He told Reuters that Hasan would need to sue in federal court to try to block a public display of his death, and that the Supreme Court had never addressed the question. [1]
Fidell separately told the Associated Press that Hasan could file a habeas petition in civilian court, a request for a judge to examine the legality of his detention. Such proceedings could delay the execution, he said, and the case might outlast the current administration. [2]
The next steps are the Pentagon's promised broadcast details and any legal challenge Hasan brings. The Army's execution date remains December 3. [1][2]
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