The execution of a former US army psychiatrist by firing squad is to be livestreamed after Pete Hegseth said it would be a public event. Nidal Hasan was sentenced to death after killing 13 people at a military base in Texas in 2009. There has been widespread condemnation of the decision, including from the UN which said it would ‘amount to torture’. Lucy Hough speaks to US academic and capital punishment specialist Austin Sarat, the author of Life After Death: Surviving Execution

What happened to Pike was gruesome. No one deserves what she went through, not even those who commit horrible crimes

Botched executions are nothing new in US history. In the era when hangings were common, some condemned people were decapitated. Later, when the electric chair was in vogue, every now and again, someone would catch fire during an electrocution. And nitrogen hypoxia, the US’s newest execution method, has already proven notoriously unreliable.

But, of all of the ways we have tried to execute people, lethal injection has the worst track record. More than 8% of all lethal injection executions have been botched. Most of them resulted when those charged with carrying them out could not find a usable vein.

Christa Pike’s planned execution is emblematic of America’s broken death penalty system

On 30 September, the state of Tennessee plans to put Christa Pike to death. She would be the third person brought to the death chamber in the Volunteer state this year, one of which was stopped after it was botched.

She would join 17 others who have been put to death there since 1960. None of them were women.

To put it plainly, nitrogen hypoxia kills by starving someone of the oxygen needed to sustain life

The eighth amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment is among the most noble and valuable constitutional protections. It is the only provision of the constitution that recognizes the dignity and humanity of everyone, even those who commit the vilest crimes.

But in the last several years, this great legal and moral achievement has taken a beating at the hands of conservative judges and justices. They have done much to empty it of its meaning by tethering it to the views of the people who wrote it more than two centuries ago.

In a court of law, tech titans will be judged not for who they are, but what they do. We should take comfort in that

Jury verdicts are meant to speak the truth, and today’s verdict in a California courtroom spoke the truth about the pernicious effects of platforms such as Instagram and YouTube on young people in the United States and around the world. The jury found two social media giants, Meta and YouTube, responsible for injuries incurred by a 20-year-old woman over the course of her childhood.

The plaintiff, referred to in court as KGM, claimed that her social media use had begun when she was six years old. Her suit alleged that the sites she regularly used had features designed to hold her attention and keep her coming back.

Barely a mile from Floyd’s murder, an officer killed Renee Nicole Good. We must peacefully say no to this violence

On 25 May 2020, America witnessed a stunning act of police brutality when a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, murdered George Floyd. The killer, Derek Chauvin, apparently confident that he would be immune to accountability, did his deed in the open, with other officers standing by and in front of a crowd of onlookers.

The video of Floyd’s murder shocked the nation.

Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty

Congress must work to stop the president from leading us further into a South American quagmire

Donald Trump seems determined to have a military confrontation with Venezuela. He has deployed a massive military arsenal in and around the Caribbean Sea and taken a series of provocative actions off the Venezuelan coast, justifying it as necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.

The Council on Foreign Relations says that deployment includes an “aircraft carrier, destroyers, cruisers, amphibious assault ships, and a special forces support ship. A variety of aircraft have also been active in the region, including bombers, fighters, drones, patrol planes, and support aircraft.” This is the largest display of American military might in the western hemisphere since we invaded Panama in 1989.

Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty