The Failings of Public Execution
· The Atlantic
Before the mid-19th century, executions in America were presumptively public. Most prisoners were hanged on a gallows, following an hours-long affair that began with the condemned person’s exit from jail accompanied by ministers, the sheriff and his deputies, and sometimes a military escort. Spectators joined the humiliating procession, gathering by the thousands to watch the noose lowered over the prisoner’s neck. The sheriff would mount the scaffold to read aloud the death warrant, sometimes adding commentary, and at least one minister (often several) would issue sermons. The condemned was offered the chance to give a speech, with spectators standing so close that they could ask the prisoner questions and join him in prayer, or bid him goodbye, if he was a family member or friend.
All of that seemed safely confined to a past that the Trump administration now hopes to revive. President Trump, a consummate showman, has authorized the country’s first public execution in 90 years. The condemned prisoner is Nidal Hasan, a military psychiatrist who murdered 13 people and injured many more during a 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, in Texas. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that the killing, scheduled for December 3, will be conducted by the military and publicly livestreamed. During his trial, Hasan alarmed his standby attorneys when he chose to defend himself, and mounted an argument that the lawyers considered tantamount to seeking his own death. He could still conceivably file civilian appeals, which could delay his execution substantially. If it goes forward, the administration surely hopes to make an example of Hasan to all who might be tempted by his worldview. But this strategy could just as likely result in unintended consequences, and pushback by the public.
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[Elizabeth Bruenig: The way of the gun]
Public executions ceased not because those who clamored to witness them found the displays uniformly outrageous, but because politicians in the 19th century associated them with proletarian barbarity. Though these executions were theoretically meant to deter crime and exhort onlookers to practice proper Christian values, they were mostly entertainment, and did not always provoke the desired reactions. Some onlookers cheered and celebrated the killings; others sympathized with the condemned. Public executions of Black prisoners in the South, for instance, became opportunities for community, song, and displays of Black religious authority. Ministers preached sermons of salvation and sometimes protested that the prisoners were innocent.
In that sense, the public nature of executions backfired, and critics took note. Because the attendant crowds were so volatile, vulgar, and unruly, by 1860 all northern states had begun carrying out the killings in jail yards, which were much smaller areas, subject to tight government control. Decades later, the South followed suit. The large crowds soon vanished. Military executions, traditionally carried out by firing squad, were long conducted in small, controlled settings, often witnessed only by military personnel and chaplains. The last military execution in the United States was carried out in 1961.
Trump and Hegseth aim to have it both ways: a small, secure setting and massive crowds. This time, viewers will be watching a livestream on their screens, close enough to see the event but too far to smell the gunpowder. Both Hegseth and Trump seem intent on flexing America’s political power and military might as a message not just to foreign enemies but to the American people, as if to say: This could be you. This method of ruling by fear is central to authoritarian governance, and Trump and Hegseth seem drawn to executions partly for that reason.
But if Trump and Hegseth are hoping for a deterrent effect, they’re unlikely to get it. The idea that executions could deter other killers with political motives seems sorely mistaken; those who carry out such murders already know that they could face grave consequences, and have deemed that outcome acceptable. Nor do executions deter murderers without political motives, because deterrence is generated not by the severity of the punishment, but by the certainty of getting caught. And there is little certainty in American homicide investigations: In 2023, the nationwide case-clearance rate for murder was only 58 percent, meaning that murderers have decent odds of evading justice. Even if they are caught, they have good odds of avoiding the death penalty—only 23 new death sentences were handed down in 2025. Trump’s Department of Justice hopes to boost those numbers, but even if they tripled, they would add up to 69 death sentences spread across some 14,000 murders.
[Read: The problem with Trump’s crime claims]
Adding a livestreamed element is perhaps an attempt to intensify the intended deterrent effect, but it might have opposite consequences. Plenty of Americans would surely enjoy the spectacle of a public execution, just as people have historically. One can envision groups of people crowded around their phones, sharing chips and drinks, admiring the military pageantry. But it’s easy to imagine a different effect, too: Other crowds of people, other phones, entirely different impressions—that the death penalty is a disgusting violation of human rights that puts America in league with nations such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and China. Or that Nidal Hasan is a martyr, and the United States is a savage country not worth defending—which is the narrative presented by Hasan himself. Before the shooting, he told family that he’d turned against the country he served upon hearing horrific stories of war from his psychiatric patients, and grew troubled by the fact that America was killing Muslims abroad. Carrying out his public execution would only credit the notion that this country is barbarous.