By Maria Fernanda Alvarez Angeles, October 27, 2026
The decision to livestream an execution raises a question that extends beyond capital punishment: At what point does the pursuit of justice become a public display of violence?
On Oct. 8, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced during an interview with Real America’s Voice that the planned firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, a former Army major convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, would be livestreamed. Hegseth defended the proposal by arguing that the public needed to understand the consequences of such crimes of terrorism. However, President Donald Trump later reversed the decision on Oct.15, announcing that the execution would proceed without a public livestream. Trump acknowledged that he believed broadcasting the execution could serve as a deterrent but said many people would rather not watch Hasan die. The reversal followed public criticism and opposition from political and religious figures.
Although the livestream was canceled, the conversation surrounding the proposal deserves attention. I see three major concerns: using fear to demonstrate government power, desensitizing the public to violence and allowing graphic footage to circulate beyond anyone’s control.
I believe there is a difference between carrying out a punishment and making an entire country watch someone die. No one’s worst day should become a public spectacle. Hasan’s crimes caused devastating losses for victims and their families, and acknowledging the severity of those crimes does not erase the ethical questions surrounding how the government chooses to carry out punishment. To me, accountability should not require turning a person’s death into a public event.
The argument that the public should watch an execution to understand its consequences suggests that seeing death is part of the punishment’s intended message. But what exactly is that message? Is it accountability, deterrence or fear? If the goal is to demonstrate government authority, broadcasting a person’s death risks shifting the focus from justice to the power of the institution carrying it out.
My concern is not that the public should be shielded from every uncomfortable reality. Journalism has a significant role in reporting violence, government actions and the consequences of crime. However, there is a meaningful distinction between reporting that an execution occurred and broadcasting the moment someone dies. Informing the public does not necessarily require making death a visual experience.
The history of public executions in the U.S. offers another reason to question the proposal. On Aug. 14, 1936, Rainey Bethea was publicly hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky. His execution drew a large crowd, and the spectacle surrounding his contributed to the end of public executions in the country. Kentucky subsequently banned public hangings in1938, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
This history makes the proposed livestream particularly unsettling. Technology now allows a moment of violence to reach millions of people instantly, potentially including children. Unlike a physical gathering, a livestream can be recorded, reposted and circulated indefinitely. Once footage enters the internet, controlling where its distributed and who sees it becomes much more difficult.
I also find it troubling how easily a proposal to broadcast a government execution could become an ordinary policy debate rather than a moment for serious ethical reflection. When society becomes accustomed to increasingly graphic displays of punishment, people may begin to question them less. What initially shocks the public can gradually become familiar and what becomes familiar can become easier to accept without question.
Anthony Zarate, who earned a business administration master’s degree from the University of La Verne, expressed concern about the proposal’s broader implications. He questioned what broadcasting an execution would communicate to other countries and whether the government could control the footage once it was online.
“I think we should never livestream someone’s death,” Zarate said.
Zarate’s concern reinforces one of the biggest problems with the proposal: even if the government intends to use the footage as a deterrent, it cannot guarantee how others will use it. The potential for the footage to circulate beyond its original purpose raises questions about whether broadcasting and execution would inform the public or simply expand access to graphic violence.
The government has a responsibility to uphold the law, but that responsibility also invites scrutiny over how punishment is presented to society. A decision to execute someone and a decision to broadcast that execution are not the same. One concern is the punishment itself; the other determines what the public is expected to witness.
The cancellation of the livestream was an important development in this debate, but it does not erase the questions the proposal raised. I believe a government can pursue accountability without turning an execution into a broadcast for public consumption.
Justice should not be measured by how many people see a death or how effectively a punishment frightens an audience. It should be measured by the principles a society chooses to uphold, even when confronting individuals responsible for devastating crimes.
If the purpose of punishment is to demonstrate the consequences of violence, society must also consider what it teaches by broadcasting violence in return. The question is not whether the public should take serious crimes seriously. It is whether witnessing a person die is necessary to understand justice, or whether making death a spectacle risks normalizing the very violence society claims to condemn.
