The State of the Death Penalty

Brian Lehrer (0:10)

It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Last year, according to Amnesty International, the human rights group, only two governments in the world carried out public executions. They were the Taliban government in Afghanistan and the government of Iran. Soon there will be another, the United States of America. As you may have heard, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced that the shooter in the terrorist attack on Fort Hood, Texas in 2009 will be killed by firing squad on December 3rd and the execution will be live streamed.

Pete Hegseth (0:47)

And we'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things.

Brian Lehrer (0:57)

Hex Ather on Real America's Voice, a right-wing streaming network. The Fort Hood shooter was Nidal Hasan, a former army psychiatrist who killed 13 unarmed people and wounded 32 and described the massacre as an act of jihad. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2013

In a letter that Hasan wrote in 2017, cited by ABC News, he basically said he did it to support the Taliban while the US was at war in Afghanistan. He wrote, quote, I considered those who were trying to help the US undermine the Taliban's attempt to establish sharia law as the supreme law of the land and replace it with something else like a democracy that doesn't rule by God's law, the enemies of God, and thus worthy of fighting and killing, unquote. So the massacre was done to support the Taliban. And in response, the US will do something that only the Taliban and Iran of all countries did last year. The US hasn't had a public execution in a very long time, as Hec Seth acknowledged in that interview.

Pete Hegseth (2:05)

It hadn't been since World War II since we've done that. Well, I kind of like the mentality we had in World War II, which was win, which was, understand when the enemy attacks you, you need to stand your ground.

Brian Lehrer (2:16)

Any World War II vets still with us, who want to call and say whether this is in the spirit of the country you were fighting for at the time, which was fighting right-wing ultranationalism in the form of the Nazis, 212-433-WNYC-433-9692.

Also, this is at least the third way in recent days that the death penalty has been in the news. There was the botched execution by lethal injection of Christa Pike, and California Governor Gavin Newsom, if you haven't heard this yet, said he may now commute the death sentences of all 563 people on the state's death row. With me now, Justin Mazzola, Deputy Director of Research at Amnesty International USA. For transparency, before we start, their position is Amnesty opposes all executions. Justin, thank you for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Justin Mazzola (3:12)

Thank you for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer (3:14)

And, listeners, feel free to ask questions or to weigh in. 212-433-WNYC, Centenarian World War II vets, as I invited a minute ago, or anyone else. In your opinion, should the death penalty ever be imposed in the United States? If so, for what crimes? And does it matter to you by what means? 212-433-WNYC, call or text 212-433-9000.

Is there a moral difference to you between a public execution by firing squad, as Hegseth is planning for Nidal Hasan, or a closed-door lethal injection, theoretically more humane when it works, or any other way? Do you see it as a deterrent, as Hegseth cited there? Do you see it as only fair after something like a terrorist mass murder? Deserves it, going to do it, you don't care. Or anything else you want to say or ask, 212-433-WNYC, call or text, 212-433-9692, with Justin Mazzola from Amnesty International. Justin, I got that stat from the Amnesty website, that the Taliban and Iran, of all countries, carried out public executions last year, and no other country did. And in fact, I believe the only countries to do so in each of the last four years from 2022 on were the Taliban in Afghanistan and Iran. Do you know why them?

Justin Mazzola (4:46)

Well, we do know that the focus on Afghanistan and Iran is specifically because those were judicial executions. They weren't extrajudicial, and there were executions that we could actually confirm. We had heard reports that there could have been public executions that occurred in North Korea.

But unfortunately, we weren't able to confirm whether or not that actually happened. And so, as far as our notes are concerned, in terms of judicial executions that we were able to confirm, those two countries were the ones that we were able to highlight in the report. And really, it's used as a form of repression, right? It's, you know, there is no deterrent effect, but it does instill fear, it does instill apprehension from speaking out and rising up against the government, which is really the main reasons why we see these two countries in particular carry out public executions as they have.