A livestreamed execution would be a new low of the modern age.
In a self-described act of jihad, Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan killed 13 people at Fort Hood Army base in 2009, shouting “Allahu Akhbar!” while opening fire on his fellow soldiers. He is scheduled for execution by firing squad on December 3. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that the execution will be streamed live to make sure that “people are able to watch it” because “people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
Hasan is a murderer, a terrorist, a traitor, and the radicalized version of Islam he subscribed to is repugnant to every American value. He forfeits his life for his crimes. Justice is served by his death sentence. And it’s a long-standing part of the practice that those directly affected by the convict’s crimes, family members, or the media can observe the execution.
But livestreaming his death to the American public and the world would be a step back into savagery. (And, as Jim Geraghty notes, it’s not possible under current regulations unless the Department rescinds them.) The measure isn’t for education; people well understand what capital punishment is. Does Hegseth imagine that Americans would tune in and cheer on the execution, like patrons of the Roman Colosseum or Parisian revolutionaries at la guillotine? Most wouldn’t. Still, the type of enthusiasm for death by those who would is what led to public executions going out of style in the first place. The last hanging in America in 1932 and the last beheading via guillotine in France in 1939 whipped crowds of tens of thousands into a frenzy. The effect of viewing the punishment excited the basest instincts of human nature. Executions were moved largely out of the public view. I’m not saying that the broadcast of Hasan’s execution is likely to cause large-scale chaos, but we have come to find reveling in death and gore to be barbaric. Hasan’s execution will inevitably be clipped and commented on in such a way in an internet where clips of violence are rewarded with attention, and anonymity breeds vile thought and conduct. No Christianizing or civilizing effect would come from this, if that’s the goal.
Disseminating footage of Hasan’s execution might strike fear into some would-be terrorists. But martyrdom is a venerated status among jihadis, and it wouldn’t stop committed zealots from killing and dying in this way. It might even incense more of them. French writer Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard describes this disposition: “Unfortunately, it’s not on the wicked people, but rather on the sensitive souls, that the spectacle of punishments leaves the strongest impressions. The man whom one should most fear meeting in the forest, he’s the one who likes attending executions of criminals.”
Execution is a solemn distribution of justice for the debt that Hasan has incurred for his crimes. When death becomes spectacle, the actual serving of justice becomes irrelevant; the experience is more about whetting the bloodthirst of a mob. The American government should not indulge that instinct and certainly not broadcast it to the world.