The Return of the Public Spectacle
In the sweltering heat of August 1936, a crowd of 20,000 gathered along a riverfront in Owensboro, Kentucky. They did not come for a fair or a parade. They came to watch a young Black orphan named Rainey Bethea die. Convicted of the rape and murder of 70-year-old Lischia Edwards, Bethea ate a final meal of fried chicken, pork chops, mashed potatoes, pickled cucumbers, cornbread, lemon pie, and ice cream before climbing the gallows. The atmosphere was shockingly festive. People held ‘necktie’ parties the night before. Teenagers sold soda and popcorn. Some spectators came to see the rumored ‘Lady Executioner’—the local sheriff’s widow—though she ultimately hired a man to pull the lever.
It was a circus. The embarrassment of that rowdy, voyeuristic crowd led Kentucky to outlaw public executions 18 months later. By the end of 1937, after a final, quiet hanging in Missouri, the practice was dead in America. Or so we thought.
A Modern Firing Squad, Beamed to Millions
Ninety years later, the public execution is making a comeback. But this time, spectators will not need to stand in a dusty Kentucky field. They will only need an internet connection. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently announced that the military will execute Nidal Hasan, the psychiatrist who killed 13 unarmed fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. He will face a firing squad this December. The Pentagon followed up with a stunning detail: the entire event will be livestreamed.
‘People need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things,’ Hegseth said, explaining the decision.
The move has sent shockwaves through the legal and academic communities. For nearly a century, the US has hidden its ultimate punishment behind thick prison walls, shifting toward clinical, private methods like lethal injection. This sudden pivot to a broadcasted firing squad reverses decades of precedent.
Entertainment or Deterrence?
‘I never imagined another public execution,’ says Michael Radelet, a scholar of capital punishment and professor emeritus at the University of Colorado. Radelet notes that public support for the death penalty has actually plummeted over the last few decades. In 1994, support stood at 80%. Today, it has dropped to 52%, especially when life without parole is offered as an alternative.
Radelet fears that broadcasting Hasan’s death turns justice into raw entertainment. ‘The justification for the death penalty becomes entertainment,’ he warns. ‘Bring your popcorn, invite your friends.’
The historical parallels are deeply unsettling for people like Sonya Lea, who recently published a book on Bethea’s 1936 hanging. Her own grandparents were teenage newlyweds in that Kentucky crowd, close enough to hear the snap of the rope. Many locals, she says, were haunted for life by what they saw.
‘I really thought, with all my heart, that we had put this in the rearview mirror,’ Lea says, comparing the decision to practices in authoritarian regimes like Iran, North Korea, and Afghanistan. She is horrified that modern digital technology will allow millions more to witness the violence than the 20,000 who stood in Owensboro.
A Desensitized Public
Why now? The answer may lie in the deeply polarized state of American political culture. Kurt Gray, a social psychology professor at Ohio State University, suggests the announcement reflects an increasingly numb public. While some may actively thirst for blood, many others are simply indifferent. ‘It’s not like they’re cheering a public execution,’ Gray says. ‘They’re just like, “Oh, yeah, I guess that’s where we’re at now.”‘
When the camera turns on this December, the nation will face a grim new reality. What was once deemed too vulgar for a Kentucky riverfront is now deemed fit for a global broadcast.