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-redistricted and whether it would contravene the policies of the online platform that hosts the viewing.
It is unclear where the livestream will be available. Most major social media platforms have rules that prohibit or restrict livestreaming explicit content.
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.
While Trump has never publicly advocated for a public execution, he has long supported the death penalty. In 1989, for example, he took out large ads in The New York Times calling for the execution of the Central Park Five – who had been convicted of rape and assault charges but were later exonerated.
Trump has previously condemned public executions in Iran, and has cited the Iranian government’s potential killing of protesters as a possible justification for military intervention before attacking the country earlier this year.
The US government had not executed anyone for 17 years until the final year of Trump’s first term as president, when the government conducted a flurry of 13 executions.
Upon returning to office last January, Trump swiftly overturned predecessor Joe Biden’s moratorium on federal executions and signed an executive order aimed at “restoring” the death penalty and “protecting public safety”.
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 the World War Two.
With additional reporting by Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu
