US Plans Public Execution for First Time Since 1937

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced that the military will publicly execute Nidal Hasan, a former soldier who killed 13 unarmed fellow soldiers at the Fort Hood base in Texas in 2009. The Pentagon added that the execution would be carried out by firing squad and live-streamed. If it goes ahead, it would be the first public execution in the United States since 1937.

Hegseth said people need to understand that there are serious consequences for such acts.

The last public executions

The last high-profile public hanging in the US took place on 14 August 1936 in Owensboro, Kentucky. Rainey Bethea, a black man in his 20s, was hanged after being sentenced to death for robbing, raping and killing Lischia Edwards, a 70-year-old widow. An estimated 20,000 people gathered, and reporters came from as far as Chicago and New York. The spectacle embarrassed many in Kentucky, and the state's governor outlawed public executions 18 months later. Another hanging, attended by a few hundred people in Missouri in 1937, is regarded as the final public execution in the country.

Critical reactions

Michael Radelet, professor emeritus at the University of Colorado and a long-time scholar of capital punishment, said he never imagined another public execution. He noted that public support for the death penalty has fallen from 80% in 1994 to 52% now, and argued the move turns the justification for capital punishment into entertainment.

Sonya Lea, who published a book on the Bethea hanging last year, called the plan horrifying. Her grandparents were among the 1936 crowd, and she said a livestream could reach far more people than the 20,000 who attended.

Kurt Gray, a social psychology professor at Ohio State University, said political polarisation and rhetoric may have set the stage for such an announcement. In his view, many Americans may be desensitised rather than supportive.