Former US Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan is set to become the first person executed by a US military firing squad since 1945, with the Pentagon confirming that the execution will be livestreamed.
The execution is scheduled for December 3 at Fort Hood, the Texas military base where Hasan opened fire at a medical facility in 2009, killing 13 people and injuring dozens of others. The decision comes amid renewed debate over capital punishment in the United States following a botched lethal injection attempt involving a Tennessee death-row inmate last week.
“It will be livestreamed. Details will follow,” a Pentagon official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who advocated for Hasan’s execution by firing squad, also confirmed the livestreaming plan in a post on X.
Media organisations have previously sought permission to televise executions in the United States, but courts have blocked such efforts. Experts said they were unaware of any other country that livestreams or televises legal executions.
Public executions have become increasingly rare worldwide. Iran and Taliban-run Afghanistan are among the jurisdictions reported to have carried out public executions in recent years.
In the United States, public executions and extrajudicial lynchings—particularly those targeting Black Americans—were once widespread spectacles. Death penalty experts say the last legally sanctioned public execution in the country took place in 1936, when thousands gathered to watch the hanging of a young Black man convicted of raping a white woman.
Speaking on the Human Events Daily programme, Hegseth described the decision to execute Hasan at Fort Hood on a Thursday at 1pm as an obvious choice. The scheduled time, day and location approximate the circumstances of the 2009 shooting.
“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.
When asked whether Hasan had made any final requests, Hegseth replied: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3.”
A military jury sentenced Hasan to death in August 2013 after finding him guilty of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder.
Hasan, now 56, carried out the shooting weeks before he was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan. He was left partially paralysed and confined to a wheelchair after being shot by police during his arrest.
Under US military law, executions by firing squad require presidential approval. The Pentagon said on Monday that President Donald Trump had approved the execution following a recommendation from Hegseth.
The White House declined to comment on whether Trump supported the decision to livestream the execution, directing questions to the Pentagon.
The anti-capital-punishment organisation Death Penalty Action has said Hasan’s execution would mark the first military execution since 1961. According to the Death Penalty Information Centre, that execution was carried out by hanging.
The centre identifies 1945 as the year of the last known executions by US military firing squads.
Eugene Fidell, a lawyer, author and military law expert who lectures at Yale Law School, described the prospect of livestreaming the execution as highly unusual.
Although firing squads have a long history in US military law, Fidell said he was unaware of any precedent for broadcasting a military execution live or on television.
He added that Hasan would need to file a lawsuit in federal court if he wanted to challenge the public broadcast of his death.
Fidell also questioned how the US Supreme Court might approach the issue, noting that the court had never directly addressed the question.
Jonathan Lurie, an author and historian specialising in military justice, said there were no compelling reasons to make the execution public.
“What’s the point of it? Who would want to see that?” Lurie said.
At least five US states have provisions allowing executions by firing squad, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. South Carolina carried out the country’s first firing squad execution in 15 years in 2025.
The Trump administration has also expanded the permitted methods of execution for the most serious federal crimes, adding firing squads, electrocution and gas asphyxiation to the available options.
The expansion partly reflects growing difficulties in obtaining drugs for lethal injections, a method that has also faced problems during implementation.
The debate has intensified following an unsuccessful attempt last week to execute Tennessee death-row inmate Christa Pike, in what would have been the state’s first execution of a woman in more than 200 years.
Pike’s lawyers said prison personnel failed to administer the lethal injection properly, leaving her alive and requiring hospitalisation. On Wednesday, her lawyers said she had awoken “angry and confused” and remained seriously ill while shackled to her hospital bed.
