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.
People aged under 18 are not permitted to watch military executions under Army regulation 190-55, external, which governs how they are carried out and who can witness them.
The BBC has asked the Pentagon and US Army if the rules restricting who can watch will be waived and what safeguards will be in place to stop young people from watching the stream.
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.
Donald Trump overturned Joe Biden’s moratorium on federal executions when he returned to the White House.
According to Pew Research conducted in July, external, two thirds of Americans (66%) support executions for murder, a figure which has risen six points in the last five years.
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
