When government power is exercised visibly and dramatically — especially in matters of life and death — it sends a signal to every citizen about what kind of democracy they live in. The proposal to livestream the military execution of convicted mass murderer Nidal Hasan has sparked a serious debate that reaches beyond criminal justice: it touches the relationship between state power, public trust, and the democratic institutions Americans depend on to govern fairly and transparently.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the execution by firing squad of convicted mass murderer Nidal Hasan would be livestreamed. President Donald Trump has since said he will ultimately decide whether the execution goes out over public airwaves. The debate this has ignited goes to the heart of something voters and citizens care deeply about: whether the government is using its power in ways that strengthen democratic accountability — or erode it.
Public executions have not occurred in the United States for nearly a century. Reviving them — even in digital form — is not simply a matter of criminal justice policy. It is a question about the kind of civic culture we want to sustain, and what it means when institutions that hold the power of life and death choose spectacle over solemnity.
A History Americans Should Know
The last reported public execution in the United States was a hanging in Missouri in 1937, attended by hundreds of onlookers. A year earlier, in Kentucky, 20,000 people attended the public hanging of a 22-year-old Black man who confessed to raping a 70-year-old white woman but was never formally charged — a stark reminder of what happens when state power operates outside the guardrails of due process.
Michael L. Radelet, professor emeritus at the University of Colorado Boulder and an expert on executions, explained to the Associated Press why public executions fell out of favor. Among the reasons: they stopped projecting authority and started attracting chaos.
“Instead of promoting the sanctity of life and how solemn the circumstance was, with people applauding and having a carnival-like atmosphere, that really turned people off,”
Radelet said. Executions became occasions for family picnics — a disturbing chapter in the nation’s history that reformers eventually moved to end.
Catholic and evangelical leaders have already condemned the public execution plan of the Fort Hood gunman, arguing it represents a misuse of state power that undermines the moral foundations of democratic governance.
What England’s “Bloody Code” Teaches Us About State Power
The American colonies inherited capital punishment from England, and England’s experience stands as a cautionary tale about what happens when government uses visible violence as a tool of control. During a period so brutal it earned the name the “Bloody Code,” the number of crimes punishable by death in England grew from 50 to over 200. Deterrence was the official justification. The reality was something very different.
According to the London Museum, these events were not civic lessons — they were economic opportunities and social spectacles:
“High-profile public executions were often attended by crowds of tens of thousands, and had a significant impact on London’s economy. The long wait at the gallows proved highly lucrative for street sellers of ‘gallows literature’ and refreshments. Long before national newspapers, accounts of crimes and executions were published in cheap pamphlets and broadsides. These were sold by patterers at the site of execution and, in the following days, throughout the country. A ‘good murder’ could sell up to 250,000 copies!”
The London Museum also notes that these spectacles became
“a key feature of London and part of the collective experience of living in London during this period”
— not a demonstration of justice, but a normalization of state violence as public entertainment. The sheer number of executions also refuted the deterrent argument; crime did not diminish alongside the expanding gallows.
Civic Reformers Who Said “Enough”
Christians and civic reformers of the 18th century recognized what was happening and pushed back. William Wilberforce — the evangelical member of Parliament best known for leading the abolition of the British slave trade — campaigned to restrict the number of capital offenses and improve prison conditions. He understood that how a government treats its prisoners reflects the moral health of the entire society.
According to his biography, Wilberforce argued:
“The barbarous custom of hanging has been tried too long, and with the success that might be expected from it. The most effectual way to prevent greater crimes is by punishing the smaller, and by endeavouring to repress the general spirit of licentiousness, which is the parent of every species of vice.”
Wilberforce and his fellow reformers also opposed so-called blood sports — animal fighting staged for public entertainment — for the same reason they opposed spectacle executions. Whether animals or human beings were the subject, turning suffering into a ticketed event degraded the moral character of all who watched. It is one thing, they argued, to slaughter an animal for the purpose of feeding people; it is another thing entirely to sell ringside seats to witness the killing. The same distinction applies to state executions: carrying out lawful punishment is one matter, but broadcasting it as entertainment is another.
The concern was not only humanitarian — it was civic. Leaders who believed in accountable government understood that a population conditioned to treat violence as entertainment becomes harder to govern through reason, law, and democratic persuasion. Public trust in institutions requires that those institutions behave with dignity.
What Augustine Understood About Crowds and Spectacle
Long before Wilberforce, the early Christian theologian Augustine documented this dynamic in his Confessions. He recounted the story of a student who opposed the gladiatorial games but was dragged along by friends. The young man resolved to keep his eyes shut — but when the crowd roared, he looked:
“As he saw the blood, he gulped the brutality along with it; he did not turn away but fixed his gaze there and drank in the frenzy, not aware of what he was doing, reveling in the wicked contest and intoxicated on sanguinary pleasure.”
He not only returned to the stadium — he brought others with him. Augustine’s insight is as relevant now as it was in the fifth century: spectacle is contagious, and state-sponsored spectacle is particularly dangerous because it carries the authority of government behind it.
Why This Matters for Democratic Institutions
Today, the very few countries that still conduct public executions include Iran, Afghanistan, and North Korea. In those nations, public executions are not expressions of justice — they are tools of authoritarian intimidation, designed to remind citizens who holds power. That is the company the United States would join by reviving the practice, even in livestreamed form.
For Americans who care about voter trust and democratic accountability, the concern is direct: when the executive branch uses its power in ways that prioritize spectacle over the rule of law, it signals a broader willingness to substitute performance for institutional integrity. Voters who trust democratic institutions expect those institutions — including the military justice system — to operate with transparency rooted in fairness, not theater rooted in dominance.
Christians can debate in good faith where capital punishment fits within a just society. But the question of whether a government execution should be broadcast as public entertainment is a separate matter — one that concerns the soul of democratic governance itself.
Matthew Lee Anderson, an ethics and theology professor at Baylor University, argues that Christians in particular are obligated
“to exhort the state to extend mercy in its demonstration of justice.”
Anderson continues:
“At a minimum, such a demand requires allowing sinners to meet God without the whole world watching. No one in their final moment on earth should be an object lesson for the state, even if they deserve the punishment they receive.”
Those words apply well beyond the walls of any church. In a democracy, the state derives its authority from the consent of the governed. When it chooses spectacle over solemnity, entertainment over due process, and performance over accountability, it weakens the civic trust that makes democratic self-governance possible. That is a concern not just for people of faith — it is a concern for every American citizen who believes that government power must be exercised with restraint, dignity, and respect for the rule of law.
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