Theofficial Army announcement that the Pentagonplans to livestream the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan tragically confuses justice with reality television. Major Hasan’s horrific 2009 rampage cost 13 innocent lives while wounding more than 30 others. His monstrous crimes leave no dispute over his guilt, making his lawful sentence of death under military law entirely deserved. Yet turning a capital execution into a broadcasted media spectacle is sick, twisted and profoundly unwise.
The Pentagon’s decision to air the execution live nationwide transforms a solemn act of government authority into high-definition death porn. Placing a paralyzed man, confined to a wheelchair, before a televised firing squad makes America look
small.
Public executions are the hallmark of authoritarian states
Far from projecting strength or upholding the rule of law, this move signals an administration big on show and low on substance. It walks the United States through the moral neighborhood of authoritarian regimes. Today, the only nations thatroutinely carry out public executions are totalitarian states such as Iran and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. In those societies, public death is used to terrorize citizens. It demonstrates the state’s unbridled supremacy. For a constitutional republic built on human dignity, adopting the public execution playbook of Tehran or Kabul is a humiliating degradation.
Supporters of this macabre broadcast claim it serves as a powerful deterrent to future terrorists. That argument fundamentally misunderstands the dark psychology of violent religious extremism. Nidal Hasan did not murder American soldiers because he feared living quietly in a military prison. He killed them because he sought to become a violent martyr for a radical Islamist ideology.
By placing him on a global screen for his final moments, the federal government is handing an extremist the ultimate public stage he has craved for 17 years. Instead of intimidating potential terrorists, a televised firing squad will serve as recruiting material across extremist channels, transforming a cowardly murderer into a martyr in the eyes of impressionable young radicals.
History shows public executions degrade society
There is a reason the United States abandoned public hangings nearly a century ago. When Kentucky officials staged the1936 public execution of Rainey Bethea, an estimated 20,000 spectators flooded the small town of Owensboro. People treated the event like a bizarre county fair.
Enterprising vendors sold hot dogs and sodas while rowdy crowds partied through the night waiting for the trapdoor to drop. Following that chaotic spectacle, lawmakers and civic leaders recognized that public executions do not elevate public morality. Instead, they debase the public square. They encourage a mob mentality that feeds on gore rather than justice. When state-sanctioned death becomes public entertainment, society loses its moral compass.
Justice should never become public entertainment
This spectacle is particularly jarring for those of us who hold a pro-life worldview. A genuine reverence for the sanctity of human life demands that even when the state must execute a lawful sentence of death upon a convicted murderer, it must do so with solemn restraint. Justice requires accountability, but it never demands celebration. Gloating over the taking of a human life corrodes the soul of the nation regardless of how wicked the perpetrator may be.
Scripture reminds us in the book of Ezekiel that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but desires that the wicked turn from their evil ways. Proverbs similarly cautions against rejoicing when an enemy falls, lest such arrogance invite divine disfavor. When we cheer for blood sports on our screens, we surrender a fundamental piece of our humanity.
History offers a sobering warning on this point.
In the twilight decades of the Roman Republic and throughout the decline of the Roman Empire, state leaders increasingly relied on brutal public spectacles in the arena to satisfy the populace. Bread and circuses became the substitute for actual governance and moral discipline. The public thirst for blood sport grew as Rome’s internal strength decayed. When a government must resort to public executions to demonstrate its resolve, it reveals not confidence, but moral bankruptcy.
America should reject this spectacle of death
We can and should continue to debate whether the death penalty itself remains a prudent policy for a limited government trusted with power over life and death. Honest conservatives can reasonably differ on the ultimate efficacy and administrative wisdom of capital punishment. But we ought to agree without hesitation that turning an execution into a public spectacle is an indefensible error. Justice is served in quiet courtrooms and executed with dignified gravity, far from the cameras and the applause of a mob.
Nidal Hasan chose a path of evil. He must answer to both human law and divine judgment. But the federal government should not lower itself to his level by staging a macabre theater of death.
True strength lies in quiet adherence to law and principle, not in broadcasting blood sports to a distracted nation. It is time for federal leadership to cancel the show and let justice be served with the dignity a civilized nation owes to itself.
USA TODAY Network Tennessee columnist Cameron Smith is a Memphis-born, Brentwood-raised recovering political attorney raising four boys in Nolensville with his particularly patient wife, Justine. Send outrage or agreement to smith.david.cameron@gmail.com or @DCameronSmith on X. Agree or disagree? Send a letter to the editor at letters@tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Don't turn Nidal Hasan's execution into reality television | Opinion
