The Pentagon has confirmed that the military’s first death row execution in more than 60 years will be available for the public to watch. The planned execution is that of Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.

War Department officials announced earlier this week that they intended to carry out Hasan’s execution. Officials have scheduled it for Dec. 3 at Fort Hood, the same installation where the mass shooting occurred.

Secretary Pete Hegseth first disclosed the plan to broadcast the execution during an interview aboard a Navy ship Thursday. He told a reporter that officials would ensure the proceeding was public.

“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,” Hegseth said aboard the ship.

Hegseth’s explanation tied public access to the consequences for crimes of this nature. Pentagon officials provided additional confirmation later that evening in an email sent to Task & Purpose.

In that email, officials said the execution would be “livestreamed.” The confirmation means the public broadcast described by Hegseth will accompany a military execution unlike any conducted in more than six decades.

We reported in June that the Army was preparing to execute prisoners held on military death row. The plan was given the name Operation Resolute Justice.

Image Credit: Bell County Sheriff’s Office

Four soldiers are currently on military death row, according to the report. Hasan’s case arises from the most recent events among those involving the four condemned military prisoners.

The original plan called for transporting prisoners from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terre Haute, Indiana. Civilian death row executions have taken place at that institution since 2001.

Officials now say Hasan will instead be executed at Fort Hood, returning the proceeding to the site of the killings. The execution remains scheduled for Dec. 3.

The method also marks a departure from the procedure contained in the Army’s regulation governing military executions. Officials said soldiers serving as a firing squad will carry out the execution, while the regulation states that military executions will be conducted through lethal injection.

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The decision comes after an execution attempt involving lethal injection in Tennessee earlier this month. The only woman on death row in Tennessee survived two doses of lethal pentobarbital injections administered as part of her execution.

Hasan was an Army major when he entered a hospital at Fort Hood in 2009. He shouted “God is great” in Arabic before gunning down fellow soldiers, killing 13 people in the attack.

An Army court-martial sentenced Hasan to death in 2013. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his request for a review of the death row conviction.

Hasan will be the first soldier executed in more than 60 years. The last was Pvt. John Bennett, who was hanged in 1961 after being convicted of the rape and attempted murder of a child.

The planned firing squad would also represent the military’s first death row execution by that method in 81 years. The previous one was the 1945 execution of Pvt. Eddie Slovik, who was court-martialed for desertion during World War II.

Image Credit: Bell County Sheriff's Office

The public presentation of Hasan’s execution was confirmed first by Hegseth and then by Pentagon officials. If the schedule proceeds as announced, the Dec. 3 execution will combine a livestream, a military firing squad and the military’s first execution in more than six decades.