90 Years After Last Public US Execution, Pentagon Plans Livestream

The US Defense Department plans to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, marking the first public execution in the country in roughly 90 years, according to BBC News. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the military would carry out the execution by firing squad in December and that it would be broadcast live, the outlet reported.

What did Hegseth say about the execution?

"People need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things," Hegseth said, according to the BBC report. The Pentagon has not detailed, in the material reviewed by HTT News, how the livestream will be distributed or who will be permitted to watch it.

When was the last public execution in the US?

The method points researchers to 14 August 1936, when an estimated crowd of 20,000 gathered in Owensboro, Kentucky, to watch the hanging of Rainey Bethea, a man in his 20s convicted of robbing, raping and killing 70-year-old Lischia Edwards, the BBC reported. Spectators arrived the night before to secure spots near the gallows, and vendors sold popcorn and soda to the crowd, according to the report. The spectacle embarrassed state officials, and Kentucky's governor outlawed public executions 18 months later, the BBC noted. A smaller public hanging, attended by a few hundred people, took place in Missouri in 1937 — the event historians cite as the actual last public execution until now, per the report.

How are death-penalty researchers reacting?

Michael Radelet, a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado who has studied capital punishment for decades, told the BBC he did not expect to see another public execution in his lifetime. "I never imagined [another] public execution," he said. Radelet pointed to a documented decline in public support for the death penalty generally, though he offered no prediction about how Americans will respond specifically to a livestreamed one, calling that question unresolved.

"The justification for the death penalty becomes entertainment... bring your popcorn, invite your friends," Radelet told the BBC.

What do the numbers show about public opinion?

The clearest documented trend in the source material is the drop in support for capital punishment nationally. Radelet told the BBC that support stood at 80% in 1994 and now stands at 52% — a decline he described as "precipitous," particularly once respondents are offered life without parole as an alternative. The BBC report does not specify the polling organization or sample sizes behind those two figures, and HTT News could not independently verify the methodology from the material provided.

By the numbers

• 20,000: estimated crowd at the 1936 Kentucky hanging of Rainey Bethea, per the BBC.
• 13: soldiers killed by Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood in 2009, according to the report.
• 80% to 52%: reported decline in death-penalty support from 1994 to the present, per Radelet's account to the BBC.
• December 2026: month the Pentagon has set for Hasan's execution by firing squad, per the report.

What remains uncertain about the livestream?

The BBC report stops short of forecasting public reaction, stating only that it is "too soon to know what the American public thinks of the idea of livestreaming an execution" and noting that millions or more are likely to tune in. That uncertainty — not a measured outcome — is the operative finding available from the current reporting. No post-announcement poll, viewership estimate, or legal challenge is cited in the source material reviewed, and none should be assumed until documented.

The historical contrast the BBC draws is between two eras of public attitude: a 1930s crowd that treated a hanging as a day-long gathering with vendors and overnight camping, and a 2020s audience that pollster-measured sentiment suggests has grown more skeptical of capital punishment as a general policy, even as officials move to expand its visibility in this specific case. Radelet's framing — invoked by name and title in the BBC report — is that the gap between declining abstract support and a newly public, broadcast execution is itself the open question researchers will be watching once December arrives.

No additional academic studies, court filings, or Pentagon procedural documents were available in the material reviewed for this report. Readers seeking the originating account, including additional historical detail on the Bethea hanging and the full Hegseth and Radelet remarks, can consult the BBC News report directly.