The Pentagon says it plans to livestream the December 3 execution of Nidal Hasan.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth backed making the execution public.
Legal experts have questioned the unprecedented broadcast.
The United States will livestream the December 3 execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, the Pentagon said on Thursday. The broadcast would be an unprecedented move in the country’s use of capital punishment.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who advocated for Hasan’s execution by firing squad, confirmed plans to make the event public. A Pentagon official told Reuters that the execution would be livestreamed, adding that further details would follow.
Hasan is scheduled to be executed at Fort Hood, the same military base where he opened fire inside a medical facility with a laser-sighted handgun. He is set to become the first person executed by a US military firing squad since 1945.
Speaking to the Human Events Daily programme, Hegseth said the decision to hold the execution at Fort Hood on a Thursday at 1 pm — approximately matching the day, time and location of the 2009 shooting — was a “no-brainer”.
“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public. Because people need to understand that ... there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said.
Hasan Sentenced To Death In 2013
A military jury sentenced Hasan, now 56, to death in August 2013 after finding him guilty of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder. The shooting took place weeks before he was due to deploy to Afghanistan. Hasan was partially paralysed and left confined to a wheelchair after being shot by police during his arrest.
Under US military law, a president must approve a military execution. President Donald Trump authorised Hasan’s execution by firing squad on the recommendation of Hegseth, the Pentagon said earlier this week. The White House declined to say whether Trump supported livestreaming the execution, referring questions to the Pentagon.
The planned broadcast comes amid renewed debate over capital punishment in the US after a botched lethal-injection attempt involving Tennessee death-row inmate Christa Pike last week. Pike’s lawyers said she remained seriously ill in hospital and had awoken “angry and confused” after the failed procedure.
The group Death Penalty Action, which opposes capital punishment, said Hasan’s execution would be the first military execution since 1961. The Death Penalty Information Center says that execution was carried out by hanging; the last known US military executions by firing squad took place in 1945.
Experts Question Decision To Make Execution Public
Media organisations have previously sought permission to televise US executions, but courts have blocked such attempts. Legal experts said livestreaming Hasan’s execution would be unprecedented in the country. Experts also noted that public executions have become rare worldwide, although Iran and Taliban-run Afghanistan have conducted them in recent years.
Eugene Fidell, a lawyer and military law expert who lectures at Yale Law School, said livestreaming an execution would be “extremely, extremely strange”, Reuters reported. He said Hasan could approach a federal court to challenge the planned public broadcast.
Public executions were once held in the US. Death penalty experts say the last legally sanctioned public execution took place in 1936, when thousands watched the hanging of a Black man convicted of raping a white woman. Such executions were distinct from the extrajudicial lynchings, often targeting Black Americans, that continued into the 20th century.
At least five US states permit firing squads under their laws, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. South Carolina carried out the first firing-squad execution in the US in 15 years in 2025.
The Trump administration has also expanded the methods permitted for federal executions to include firing squads, electrocution and gas asphyxiation, citing, in part, difficulties in obtaining drugs for lethal injections.
