The United States military is preparing for an execution unlike any in modern history. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth recently announced plans to execute Nidal Hasan, the former army psychiatrist who killed 13 unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. But it is the method and the presentation that are shocking the public. Hasan will face a military firing squad, and the entire event will be livestreamed.
If it goes ahead, Hasan’s execution will be the first time the US Army has used a firing squad since 1945. But the military is not alone in looking backward. Across the country, several states are reviving older execution methods or turning to untested new ones. The reason is simple: the modern system of capital punishment is in a state of chaos.
For decades, lethal injection was seen as the quiet, medicalized way to end a life. Texas first introduced it in 1982, and it quickly became the default method nationwide. It was supposed to look peaceful. But behind the curtain, it has been anything but.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit group that tracks executions, there have been 64 botched executions in the US over the last 50 years. Out of 1,683 total executions, 51 of those failed attempts involved lethal injections.
The most recent high-profile failure involved Christa Pike, a woman convicted of killing her classmate. Her execution went horribly wrong. Pike’s attorneys reported that she could be heard whimpering, crying, and breathing loudly throughout the ordeal. The execution was ultimately called off. Pike was rushed to a hospital, treated, and returned to her prison cell ten days later.
“We always have the possibility that there’s going to be a mistake made when human beings are involved in executions,” says Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Maher points out that executions often fail because prison staff are poorly trained, drugs have expired, or states are simply experimenting with new, untested chemical cocktails.
Usually, the public is kept in the dark about who is actually administering these drugs. States rarely release details about the training or qualifications of their execution teams. “We have discovered that in many instances, and unfortunately subsequent to a botched execution, that the cause was the inadequate experience and training of the execution staff,” Maher explains.
The Struggle for Drugs and Doctors
Finding the chemicals to carry out these executions has become a massive headache for prison officials. Pharmaceutical companies do not want their products associated with death. Many have banned prisons from buying their drugs for executions, forcing states to scramble for alternative suppliers or try new formulas.
At the same time, actual medical professionals refuse to help. Major groups like the American Medical Association forbid their members from taking part in executions. Doctors take an oath to preserve life, and assisting in an execution violates that fundamental promise. Without doctors, prisons must rely on staff with little to no medical training to insert IV lines.
When things go wrong, the physical suffering can be horrific. Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiology professor in Atlanta, says that certain lethal injection drugs can cause pulmonary edema. This condition fills a prisoner’s lungs with fluid, creating a terrifying sensation of drowning while the person is paralyzed. In Pike’s case, pre-existing health issues like thrombocytosis, which her lawyers had warned about, made the process even more complicated and painful.
Suffocation and the Return of the Firing Squad
With lethal drugs hard to find and risky to use, some states have turned to a new method: nitrogen gas. This process forces a prisoner to breathe pure nitrogen until they suffocate.
Five states now authorize this method:
- Alabama
- Louisiana
- Arkansas
- Mississippi
- Oklahoma
Alabama has already used nitrogen gas to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith. This came after a failed attempt to put him to death via lethal injection in 2022. Smith’s nitrogen execution took 25 painful minutes. Witnesses reported that he thrashed violently against his restraints on the gurney as he gasped for air. Dr. Zivot warns that inhaling nitrogen can also trigger violent seizures.
Faced with these gruesome spectacles, some officials view the firing squad as a more reliable, if brutal, option. It is fast, and it does not rely on hard-to-get medical supplies. But as the US military prepares to broadcast Hasan’s death to the world, the debate over how—and if—the state should kill is only getting louder.