The Pentagon’s plan to livestream the Dec. 3 firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan is grotesque, and I oppose it completely—just as I oppose capital punishment on principle.
Hasan murdered 13 people and injured 32. He must be held accountable, and a lifetime behind bars does exactly that without compromising the state. Executing him repairs nothing for the victims’ families; it simply puts the government in the business of premeditated killing.
History already settled the question of public executions decades ago:
* **1928 (Sing Sing):** A smuggled camera captured Ruth Snyder in the electric chair. Splashed across the front page, the image was immediately recognized as an obscene violation.
* **1936 (Owensboro, Kentucky):** Twenty thousand spectators turned America’s last public hanging into a spectacle so degrading that Kentucky banned the practice outright.
* **1939 (France):** Pandemonium and tabloid photos at the last public guillotining forced executions behind prison walls. France dismantled the death penalty entirely by 1981.
* **1945:** The U.S. military carried out its last firing squad execution, shooting Pvt. Eddie Slovik for desertion. The military has not executed anyone since 1961.
For nearly a century, Western democracies pushed capital punishment out of public sight because we recognized how state-sponsored violence degrades everyone watching. Broadcasting an execution now isn't progress; it's regressing a century with higher bandwidth.
Look at the company we keep when executions become public spectacles: Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia. More than 100 nations have abolished the death penalty outright, including virtually every European democracy. The U.S. still lands on the wrong side of that ledger.
A justice system should be measured by what it refuses to stoop to. True accountability doesn't need an audience, a firing squad, or a countdown timer.
Cancel the broadcast. Then scrap the death penalty for good.
Originally published on Substack.
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