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-restricted and whether it would contravene the policies of the online platform that hosts the viewing.
The countries with the highest number of executions last year were China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the US, in that order, Amnesty International data shows.
The US government had not executed anyone for 17 years until the final year of Trump’s first term as president, when it conducted a flurry of 13 executions. Upon returning to office Trump swiftly overturned predecessor Joe Biden’s moratorium on federal executions.
The last military execution in the country took place in 1961, when a US Army private was hanged after being convicted of raping an 11-year-old Austrian girl. The execution was authorised by then-President Dwight D Eisenhower and took place despite the victim’s family asking his successor, John F Kennedy, for clemency.
The last military execution by firing squad took place in January 1945, when a young US Army deserter, Eddie Slovik, was shot during the final months of World War Two.
With additional reporting by Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu and Kali Hays
