SALT LAKE CITY – Utah officials here and in Washington have reacted with almost universal dismay to the pending public execution of convicted murderer Nidal Hasan by the U.S. military.
Leading the Utah hand-wringers is Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) who has labeled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s plan to live-stream the Dec. 3 execution by firing squad an erosion of civilized behavior.
“The victims deserve justice administered with solemnity,” according to Curtis. “Broadcasting a death diminishes us and is not an effective deterrent.”
Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson called the Pentagon plan “deeply disturbing” and Gov. Spencer Cox reposted a tweet calling the proposed televised execution “barbaric.”
“A civilization erodes when it cultivates an appetite for executions as a form of entertainment,” Curtis wrote in online comments after Hegseth confirmed on Oct. 8 that Hasan’s execution by firing squad would be streamed live.
Curtis compared the convicted murderer’s execution to the bloody gladiatorial combats staged in ancient Rome, saying that event would feed that unnatural appetite.
If carried out, Hasan’s execution would be the first imposed by the military since 1961.
Hasan killed 13 fellow service members and wounded 32 in a mass shooting at Ft. Hood, TX on Nov. 5, 2009, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
In the midst of the ongoing War on Terror, Nidal was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in late November of that year.
He had served in the Army for 21 years and risen to the rank of major, serving as a psychiatrist counseling soldiers recently returned from combat.
Hasan was shot and paralyzed below the waist by military police responding to the scene of the shooting. He is now confined to a wheelchair, according to military authorities.
In his subsequent court martial, where Hasan chose to defend himself against the advice of legal counsel, he described his actions as retaliation for the U.S. military’s violence against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Death Penalty Information Center reports that Hasan is one of only four people on death row at Ft. Leavenworth, KS.
In recent months, the U.S. Justice Department has proposed broadly using firing squads and other methods in federal executions, in lieu of procuring and administering lethal injection drugs.
The military’s plan to public execute Hasan is also opposed by Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Chris Murphy (D-CT), both of whom have called the plan “disgusting” and “medieval” respectively.
The last time that the military executed a service member by firing squad was 1945. The last legally sanctioned public execution in the United States was 90 years ago.