Ethan Vance | staff writer

As soldiers aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln prepared to reunite with family members for the first time in more than ten months, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke with reporters about Nidal Hasan.

“He’s gonna get a firing squad of soldiers as it should be,” Hegseth told Real America’s Voice News. “We’ll make sure that people watch it, that it’s public because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”

On Thursday, Hegseth announced the Pentagon will livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan on Dec. 3, yet haven’t said how or where.

Hasan was sentenced to death in 2013 for committing the 2009 Fort Hood Shooting in Killeen, Texas. The attack killed 13, including a pregnant woman, and wounded 32 others. It is the deadliest shooting against armed forces on a military base.

The last public execution in the U.S. was in 1936 when a Kentucky man was publicly hanged according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Kentucky then banned public executions, abolishing the practice altogether in the U.S.

Experts have mixed opinions on the announcement.

“It’s terrible what he did,” said Norman Conti, a Duquesne sociology professor. “But I equally am against the death penalty in this case.”

Hasan mentioned his motive was that he possessed a jihad duty to kill as many soldiers as he could, according to an undated letter he wrote to ISIS.

Because of this, much of Conti’s concerns for livestreaming the execution come from not wanting to broadcast his thoughts and give him a platform.

“You’re making him bigger,” Conti said. “When you do this one of a kind thing we’ve never really seen before, you’re making that kind of celebrity.”

Sophomore communications major Alessandro Amy also expressed concerns.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this,” Amy said. “I’m leaning toward not wanting it livestreamed because it’s a little extreme.”

Freshman education major Trevor Kumiega said he believes that the U.S. is trying to send a message.

“I think they’re trying to strike fear into people and other countries,” Kumiega said. “I don’t think it needs to be livestreamed. It’s gross and no one wants to see it.”

Today, 27 states uphold the death penalty while four others, including Pennsylvania, have Gubernatorial moratoriums which are a temporary suspension of law that pause executions without abolishing the practice, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

This is despite public support for the death penalty decreasing over the last 20 years. A 2025 October poll by Gallup shows that 52% of Americans still support the death penalty, down from a peak of 70% in May of 2003. Gallup is a global analytical and advisory firm grounded in public opinion.

Junior business law major Randieh Kassouf said he opposed the death penalty because of his religious beliefs.

“I’m Catholic,” Kassouf said. “I don’t believe that we should decide whether or not someone dies.”

Hasan’s scheduled death has not been the only execution in the public eye recently.

On Sept. 30, Tennessee attempted to execute Christa Pike who murdered Colleen Slemmer in 1995 for believing she was trying to get with her boyfriend at the time. However, the two doses of Pentobarbital she received failed to kill her.

“I shouldn’t be surprised because we don’t do a good job with anything involving women in the criminal justice system,” Conti said. “So the fact that we can’t execute them properly in whatever kind of way shouldn’t be a surprise.”

Conti leads the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, an organization that pairs students with incarcerated individuals for collaborative learning. He has worked with and seen prisoners for years.

“The system is designed for men and made up of about 90% of men. As a result, so many of the needs of women go unmet,” Conti said.

The case of Pike has also brought questions regarding the legality of a second attempt at execution if she is fully cured. Under Tennessee state law, Pike would not be barred from a second execution attempt if she could make a full recovery.

However, some experts believe that would violate her 8th Amendment rights, which prohibit cruel and unusual punishments.

“It’s very doubtful they would ever bring her back,” said Michael Radelet, professor emeritus of sociology at Colorado-Boulder University. “If there’s any cruel and unusual punishment, that would be it.”

Across the U.S. there are still nine executions to take place this year, according to The Death Penalty Information Center.

Radelet also had concerns about the use of the death penalty. He cites his main reason as seeing how many innocent people are on death row.

“There have now been 202 people released from death row in the United States in the modern era,” Radelet said. “That’s an awful lot of innocent people, and those 200 were the lucky ones.”

Ethan Vance can be reached at vancee@duq.edu