There is no modern-era precedent for having a public execution, said John Mills, a lawyer who works with inmates sentenced to death.
“It looks to me designed to be a grotesque spectacle,” he said. “It’s an unprecedented decision in the modern era, and so it is on uncertain legal terrain,” he added.
A military execution requires approval from the US president, according to military law. It also requires appellate review, where a higher court inspects the decision, and a final judgment on its legality to move forward.
The appellate process for Hasan is not over, Mills said, and he is likely to seek review of his conviction and sentence in federal court, which would likely stay the execution.
As such, Mills said that he would be surprised if the execution happened.
“Seeking to make it livestreamed, a firing squad execution, is little more than attention-seeking by the Trump administration and is unlikely to occur, much less deliver any semblance of justice,” he added.
Certain states require some form of public viewing of executions. Many states require journalists to be present, and the person due to be executed can invite people. Others also allow ordinary citizens to volunteer as witnesses.
But “there hasn’t ever been a livestreamed execution,” says Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University, who has studied US execution methods.
A livestreamed execution would “force a level of transparency that we have probably never seen before in this country”, she says.
“More than half of the country wants the death penalty – even though that’s on the decline – an argument could be made that ‘if you want the death penalty, then we are going to show you how it’s conducted in this country’. And people would have to realise exactly what’s happening in a way that many people ignore.”
Denno says there are important considerations for a livestream such as whether it would be age-redistricted and whether it would contravene the policies of the online platform that hosts the viewing.
It is unclear where the livestream will be available.
