Firing squad execution to be livestreamed

0:00News talk breakfast with Anton Savage in association with air. The public are going to be able to watch the execution of a former US Army major by firing squad according to the US Defense Secretary Pete Higgseth, who said people need to understand the consequences of their actions. This is the guy who tries to train with the military. He says he has introduced a religious affairs office to what he describes as the Department of War. He's a fruit loop of the highest order, yet he's in a very high office in the United States. And this has brought it to a whole different level that the American government is effectively producing a stuff movie that will be streamed live online. Trainer O'Connor is a criminologist who's looking at this story for his good morning, trainer. Good morning, Janton. I struggled to deal with a lot of what happens in America these days, but I saw this headline last night when I came home and I was absolutely floored that they have stooped to this.

1:05And I don't know what we're supposed to think about it. Yeah, I suppose this season of the White House is an interesting one. I suppose feasibly is it likely to happen. So Hedger has given a date of December. And I think legally it's highly unlikely that it will happen that he will be executed because there is a process under the capital punishment system in America that is quite lengthy and will probably go on and on after Trump's term. And then I suppose also, like logistically, there is a technical while there because a lot of the platforms have policies against broadcasting explicit violence or death, which this would be. So I depend to go on to set up their own bespoke streaming platform for this. Maybe they could use a platform that's already there and that somebody in the White House has access to. I don't know. But I do think that this kind of headline grabbing decisions around criminal justice is

2:09a deliberate shift from what we're seeing in modern justice systems. I mean, for the last century, executions happen behind closed doors. Obviously there is witnesses to them. You'd have John Lissamy, I'd victim families and some volunteers to witness them, but it's much more clinical and private usually. So this is the kind of thing, Trina, that the Taliban would do. And the Taliban aren't exactly a bastion of virtue when it comes to this kind of thing. Yeah, I totally agree. It's like two countries have public executions, as you say. And Afghanistan has won and I think Iran is the other. So does America want to align itself with them kind of ideologies? I mean, the risk for something like this is that, you know, by making this public, you're risking creating a martyr of this man, Hassan. And there's a real concern, that broadcast and that could radicalize other potential

3:11mass shooters or copycats because they want to be infamous and they want to create the reputation for themselves that they did sort of under this extreme ideology. So there is a real risk with this if it did go ahead, but I reckon it won't pass. I think I agree, which is because the courts will get involved in this and it'll get it'll be dragged out. But what I want to ask in particular is the, it was the way that Pete Hankseth announced this, the cavalier attitude that he had to this, how come back to World War II, this is the way we used to do it, I'm a big strong man. It's not normal behavior, never mind normal behavior for somebody in high office. Well, look, we'd need an hour to discuss the psychology of somebody like Hadsgeff. He was in the Army apparently, but he was also a television host on Fox for a number of years, I think six or seven years.

4:11And for him, any attention is good attention. I mean, like you're talking about a personality that's trying to impress on the world, the state's power. And this is almost like a digital Colosseum. It's creating a spectacle. I think it's personal because the victims in this case where on armed soldiers and it's almost like public retribution, using the military, I mean, it would be the forced military execution in 60 years, the forced public execution in 100 years. So there's a lot of emotion on this and just a shouldn't be based on emotion. It should be based on, you know, it should be blind, just a should be blind, you know. John is sent to text in and I'll ask your opinion on a police trainer. There's a premise that justice should be done in public. Well, we may not like the death penalty, perhaps seeing it in all this brutality will show people what it is actually like and people can make up their own decision whether they

5:12wanted or not. Look beyond the obvious, he says. Well, I suppose what modern corrections we do, and keep things clinical, much more clinical, rather than a being a public retribution because, you know, modern justice really is about being read. Like, it's not, it should never be a spectacle because when you spoke earlier about public executions in Afghanistan and Iran, that is very damaging for the public to see. People don't need to witness that level of violence and particularly not live streamed. So we have all of these rules around violence online and yet we want to do a state sponsored violence. I don't think it's the way that we should go. I'm reminded of Margaret Ashwood. I think she said that the handmade tale wasn't supposed to be a guidebook. It was supposed to be a work of fiction, but it really does sound like something out

6:14of the handmade tale. And if it is this guy, who's that bad guy, don't get me wrong, he committed a terrible crime. Who's next? Yeah, well, that's it. I mean, I remember reading that quote and she said it's not a blueprint for the White House. And like, this really takes away any level of proportionality and measurement around how we administer justice. And the United States have very, very clear rules around how they administer executions right now. And light will happen here today with Pike. There was a lot of discourse around transparency of how executions are carried out, but I think this is taken to the extreme level of transparency. OK, Trina O'Connor criminologist, as you say, a long road to go before this actually happens, but even by saying that they're going to do it, it's a mark that they have laid down quite clearly as to the direction that they want their country to go. And oh, it's 740 and 116 for your WhatsApp. News talk breakfast with Anton Savage in association with air weekday mornings at 7 news talk conversation

7:19that counts.