The Defense Department said Thursday that Hasan's execution will be streamed for the public to watch, after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described it as public.
The backstory: Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a 2009 shooting at the Texas base. The Army said this week that the execution will take place at Fort Hood on December 3.
- Hegseth told the conservative outlet Real America's Voice on Wednesday: "We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public."
Zoom in: Pentagon officials clarified Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed and said more details would follow. Trump approved the military's first firing squad execution since World War II.
Yes, but: Hasan could file a habeas petition in civilian court to challenge the legality of his detention, which experts said could delay the execution significantly.
- "It frankly might outlast the current administration, and who knows if the next one will have the same penchant for executions," said Eugene R. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School.
The other side: Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert at Fordham University, said livestreaming could make the process much more transparent and leave the public fully aware that it is happening.
Between the lines: The plan lands about a week after the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee, which raised fresh questions about how capital punishment is carried out.
- Brenner Fissell, a professor at Villanova Law, said firing squads are coming to be seen as a less inhumane alternative where states struggle to obtain lethal injection drugs.
Why it matters: A government broadcasting an execution would be a first for the modern United States, turning a procedure witnessed by a few dozen approved observers into something anyone with a browser can watch.
