Why is public execution returning to the United States nearly a century after it was banned?
Author, Sheila Flynn
Role, chief US affairs correspondent
Published 1 minute ago
Reading time: 4 minutes
Coming in their thousands from near and far, men, women and children lined a Kentucky riverbank to watch the public hanging of a black man convicted of raping and murdering an elderly white widow.
It was August 14, 1936 in Owensboro, Kentucky, a hot Friday, during a legendary heat wave. Some of them spent the night near the gallows to maintain their places. Others had held "tie-up" parties the night before, arriving hungover, while teenagers sold popcorn and soft drinks to onlookers.
By the time of execution at 5 a.m., the crowd had grown to an estimated 20,000 people.
Then Rainey Bethea, an orphan in his twenties, ascended to the gallows. He had been sentenced to death after allegedly confessing to the robbery, rape and murder of 70-year-old Leshia Edwards.
The previous afternoon, Bethea had eaten his last meal of fried chicken, pork chops, mashed potatoes, pickled cucumbers, cornbread, lemon pie, and ice cream.
Many among those gathered, including journalists, came from as far away as Chicago and New York, to see the rumored “lady executioner.” The local sherif (regional ruler) had died four months earlier, and his widow became his unlikely replacement. But she refused to pull the noose herself, and Pythia's life was ended by a hired executioner.
That moment marked the last high-profile public hanging in the United States. The celebratory spectacle surrounding Bethea's death embarrassed many in Kentucky, and the governor banned public executions 18 months later.
By then, most states had abolished the death penalty in public view as societal attitudes sought more humane and private methods. Another hanging, attended by a few hundred people, took place in Missouri in 1937, but it was less well-known and represented the last public execution in the United States, to date.
More than 90 years after Bethea's execution, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the army would publicly execute Nidal Hassan, who killed 13 of his fellow unarmed soldiers in 2009 at the Fort Hood military base in Texas.
This was followed by an announcement from the Pentagon that the execution by firing squad would be broadcast live over the Internet.
“People need to understand that there are serious consequences to things like this,” Hegseth said.
Michael Radelet, a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado and a long-time lecturer on the death penalty, expressed shock, telling the BBC: “I never imagined (another) public execution.”
He pointed out that popular support for the death penalty in general was constantly declining. For example, it reached 80 percent in 1994, but now stands at 52 percent.
“(Executions) have declined sharply, especially when life imprisonment without parole is offered as an alternative,” he said.
It is still too early to know the American public's position on the idea of broadcasting an execution live over the Internet. But it's almost certain that millions or more people will follow it.
Radelet said Hegseth's announcement means "the justification for the death penalty is turning into entertainment... Bring popcorn, invite your friends."
Sonya Lea, who last year published a book about Bethea's execution, felt "absolute horror for our grandchildren" when she heard the live-streamed announcement of the firing squad.
“What they called an execution in 1936 was a carnival of sadism,” she said. "Now that we have the technology that can make this reach a broader scope than the 20,000 people who came to watch in Owensboro, Kentucky, it gets even scarier."
Leah's grandparents, shortly after marrying in her teens, were among the crowd in 1936. She didn't learn about it until after her grandmother's death in 2002, when she read an account she had left explaining that they had been close enough to hear the sound of the Pythia's neck snapping.
Years of research conducted by the author later showed that many Kentucky residents were “haunted by the specter” of that execution.
She said: “I truly believed, with all my heart, that we had left this behind us, this level of ugliness that only a few countries in the world engage in, like Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan. Do we, the United States of America, now consider ourselves part of this type of government? "It's simply horrific."
But polarization and political discourse in the United States may have, in some way, paved the way for such an announcement, according to Curt Gray, a professor of social psychology at Ohio State University.
He said: “Some Americans may thirst to see blood, but I think that many Americans do not, and many others may have become less affected by it.” So it's not that they're cheering for a public execution; Rather, it is as if they are saying: I think this is the situation we have reached now.”
Other research suggests that Hegseth and the administration may be misreading the country.
Garren Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Berkeley, said polling data indicates a decline in the desire for violence in the United States.
