Damien Echols warns against watching Hasan execution livestream

Images

×

newsweek.com

Damien Echols is seen in sunglasses recently in a wooded setting. newsweek.com

This undated photo provided by the Bell County Sheriff's Department shows former Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan. newsweek.com

Damien Echols of the West Memphis Three visits "The Opie & Anthony Show" at SiriusXM Studio on September 19, 2012 in New York City. newsweek.com

‹ ›

Damien Echols spent almost two decades on death row before walking free. Now he is asking Americans not to watch what would be the first execution the US government has ever broadcast: the Pentagon plans to livestream the firing-squad death of Nidal Malik Hasan on December 3.

Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. He had exchanged emails with Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born cleric later identified as an Al-Qaeda figure, and told his court-martial he had been on the "wrong side" of what he called America's "war on Islam" before he "switched sides." Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the execution would be "public," and a Pentagon official confirmed to Newsweek that it would be livestreamed.

The plan has drawn backlash, including from some Republicans, and the brother of a soldier slain at Fort Hood has urged President Donald Trump in a letter to reconsider, writing that he does not want his brother's death to become a "public spectacle." Echols, 51, now an author and magician, was freed in the West Memphis 3 case and is still fighting to clear his name. He posted on X urging people not to watch regardless of their views on capital punishment: "You cannot witness a human being being killed and simply walk away unchanged." The post drew more than 500,000 views and over 10,000 likes. He told Newsweek he wrote it in response to what he sees as a growing public appetite for true crime, and that a broadcast killing would be "detrimental to the mental, emotional and spiritual health of society and civilization."

His position is not a simple one. He says he saw death row inmates who completely turned their lives around and would never harm anyone again — executing them, he argues, is "a waste of potential" — while others remained violent even inside prison. He calls the death penalty "an evil thing" that must sometimes be employed to prevent a greater evil, and says he cannot claim to be 100 percent against it in all cases.

The livestream plan lands amid renewed scrutiny of how executions are carried out, following the botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee in late September. National support for the death penalty has declined over the past two decades.

A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment when asked whether the plan would be reconsidered. The White House had not responded to Newsweek's request for comment at the time of publication.