US Plans to Livestream Fort Hood Shooter's Military Execution in December
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ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE: A U.S. soldier wearing a military uniform with an American flag patch. The image is for illustrative purposes and does not depict Nidal Hasan or the planned execution at Fort Hood. |
WASHINGTON — October 8, 2026
The U.S. military plans to livestream the scheduled execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, the Pentagon said. If carried out as announced, the broadcast would mark an unprecedented public transmission of a U.S. execution.
Hasan is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on December 3 at Fort Hood, the military base where the shooting took place. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the livestream plan, saying the public would be able to watch the execution.
The Pentagon announced the broadcast after President Donald Trump approved the firing squad method on Hegseth's recommendation. Under U.S. military law, the president must authorize an execution by firing squad.
Hegseth has defended the decision to use the same base and a similar time of day as the 2009 attack. Speaking on the Human Events Daily program, he said the public should understand that such crimes carry serious consequences. He also said the execution was planned for a Thursday at 1 p.m., reflecting the approximate timing of the original shooting.
Hasan, now 56, was sentenced to death by a military jury in August 2013 after being convicted of 45 counts involving premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder. The attack occurred weeks before he was due to deploy to Afghanistan. Police shot him during his arrest, leaving him partially paralyzed and requiring a wheelchair.
The proposed livestream has raised questions about the public display of executions and the limits of government authority. Media organizations have previously sought permission to televise executions in the United States, but courts have blocked such efforts. Experts cited in the report said they knew of no other country that broadcasts or livestreams a legal execution.
Public executions have largely disappeared worldwide, although Iran and Taliban-run Afghanistan have conducted them in recent years, according to the report. In the United States, legally sanctioned public executions ended much earlier than private prison executions; the last such public execution took place in 1936, according to death penalty experts.
Eugene Fidell, a lawyer and military law expert who lectures at Yale Law School, said livestreaming Hasan's execution would be highly unusual. He said the issue could raise legal questions that the U.S. Supreme Court has not directly addressed, and that Hasan would need to bring a federal court challenge to try to prevent the broadcast.
Military justice historian Jonathan Lurie also questioned the purpose of making the execution public, saying there were no compelling reasons to do so.
The execution plan comes amid renewed debate over capital punishment in the United States. The Trump administration has expanded the permitted methods for federal executions to include firing squads, electrocution and gas asphyxiation, partly because authorities have faced difficulties obtaining drugs for lethal injections.
Firing squads remain an option under the laws of at least five U.S. states, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. South Carolina carried out a firing squad execution in 2025, the first in the country in 15 years, while the last known U.S. military firing squad executions took place in 1945, according to the center.
The planned broadcast also follows a failed lethal injection attempt in Tennessee last week involving death-row inmate Christa Pike. Her lawyers said she survived the procedure and remained seriously ill in hospital. The incident has added to scrutiny of execution procedures, although the cases involve separate legal processes.
The Pentagon has said the livestream will take place but has not provided further details. The White House declined to say whether Trump supported broadcasting the execution and referred questions to the Defense Department.
