Death Penalty in the U.S.: Trump to Decide on Hasan Execution Broadcast as Christa Pike Returns to Prison

Two cases have put the death penalty in the US at the center of debate in the United States. President Donald Trump said on Saturday, October 10, that he will decide whether to broadcast the execution of former Army Major Nidal Hasan, and on the same day, Christa Pike, the woman who survived two doses of lethal injection in Tennessee, was released from the hospital and returned to prison.

• Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, is set to be executed by firing squad on December 3.
• Pike received two doses of pentobarbital on September 30 and survived.
• The United States has carried out 23 executions in 2026 as of August 18, 13 of them in Florida, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).

Why it matters: the two cases highlight questions surrounding execution methods: a lethal injection presented as «humane» failed, while firing squad, a method rarely used, is back in the spotlight.

Trump: «There are two ideas, not to show it and to show it»

«There are two ideas: not to show it and to show it. Because, by showing it, maybe other people won’t do what he did. So, I’ll make a decision at the end. I know what the military wants to do,» Trump told reporters at the White House, according to NBC News. A day earlier, he had said that Hasan «will be executed» and that he didn’t care how.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had announced that the execution would be broadcast live, an idea criticized by lawmakers from both parties because of the risk of turning Hasan into a martyr for other extremists. It would be the first military execution since 1961 and the first military firing squad since 1945, according to UPI. MundoNow explained what is known and what remains to be clarified about Hasan’s execution.

Christa Pike, Back in Prison

Pike, 50, was transferred to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville, where she has been imprisoned for more than 30 years. «She is grateful to the emergency teams and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances,» her lawyers said in a statement, according to CBS News. She continues to receive medical attention in prison.

She was convicted of the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, 19, her fellow participant in a job training program in Knoxville. After the failed execution, she was placed on a ventilator, and her lawyers came to believe she had suffered brain death, but she woke up and later walked with assistance. Governor Bill Lee ordered an independent review and suspended executions in Tennessee for the rest of the year. You can read how her recovery began in the hospital.

How States Carry Out Executions

Lethal injection is the primary method in the 27 states that maintain the death penalty in the US, but several have approved alternatives, according to the DPIC:

• Firing squad: Idaho (primary method since July 1, 2026), Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah.
• Nitrogen gas: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.

A doctor who advises Pike’s defense, Joel Zivot, told the BBC that most of the drug likely remained in the tissue of her arm instead of entering her bloodstream. The Tennessee Department of Correction defended the procedure.

Sources: NBC News; UPI; CBS News; AP via PBS; BBC; DPIC, methods by state; DPIC, 2026 executions; EFE. Data consulted on October 12, 2026.