The United States has been forced to reckon with the grim reality of capital punishment over the past two weeks, as a botched execution in Tennessee and a short-lived Pentagon plan to livestream a military execution have reignited the national debate. Critics argue these incidents expose a practice that is fundamentally inhumane and riddled with errors, and they are demanding a shift from refining execution methods to questioning why the state continues to kill at all.
On October 8, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the Pentagon intended to broadcast the execution of former Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting. The execution, scheduled to be carried out by firing squad, would have been the first military execution in over six decades. The plan drew swift condemnation from former military officials, the pope, and even members of the president's own party. Within days, President Trump reversed the decision, though the execution itself remains on track.
Just eight days before Hegseth's announcement, Tennessee's attempt to execute Christa Pike went horribly wrong. Pike survived two doses of lethal injection drugs and was left in critical condition, hospitalized as a result. This incident followed a similarly botched attempt in May, when the state spent more than 90 minutes trying to insert an IV line into Tony Carruthers, puncturing his body over a dozen times before abandoning the effort. Carruthers was left bloodied and traumatized, given only ibuprofen for the pain.
These cases highlight a pattern: when executions are botched, the state's response is to seek better procedures, not to question the practice itself. The recent controversy over the proposed livestream, which many likened to authoritarian displays of state power, similarly focused on how to keep executions out of sight rather than whether they should happen at all. As one Marine veteran argued, broadcasting executions would betray American values, but the underlying cruelty remains whether or not cameras are present.
The push for more humane methods has repeatedly failed. In 2024, Kenneth Smith gasped and writhed during Alabama's first use of nitrogen hypoxia, despite official assurances it would be painless. A year later, South Carolina's firing squad shot Mikal Mahdi in a way that left him alive and reacting longer than intended. That same year, Byron Black told his spiritual advisor he was in pain as Tennessee executed him, and his autopsy revealed fluid in his lungs, which experts say can feel like drowning.
The legal system has even produced a constitutional absurdity: to challenge an execution method as cruel, a prisoner must propose an alternative method that reduces pain, effectively helping the state devise a better way to kill them. This undermines the Eighth Amendment's guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment, which is rooted in respect for human dignity. As some legal scholars suggest, the courts themselves may need structural reform to properly address such constitutional contradictions.
Secrecy does not shield those who witness executions—victims' families, legal teams, media, and corrections officers—from trauma. It merely allows the public to look away. The backlash to the Pentagon's livestream plan offers a chance to break this pattern. For supporters of capital punishment who recoiled at the spectacle, the challenge is to apply that scrutiny to the punishment itself.
The evidence is mounting that no execution method can guarantee a peaceful, cruelty-free death. The question is whether America will continue to accept these horrors or finally recognize that the death penalty is a practice that cannot be justifiably repaired. As public opinion shifts on related issues, the demand for abolition is growing louder.
