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Public executions are resuming in the US, BBC report says

Nearly a century after Rainey Bethea's 1936 hanging drew a crowd of 20,000 in Kentucky, the era of spectacle executions has returned

By LineZotpaper
Published
Read Time2 min
A BBC report says public executions are returning to the United States nearly a century after the practice was abandoned. The report revisits the last high-profile public hanging, that of Rainey Bethea before an estimated 20,000 people in Owensboro, Kentucky, in August 1936, and the reform backlash it triggered.

The BBC report uses the Bethea case to explain why America turned away from public executions, and why the practice is now returning. Bethea, an orphan in his twenties, was sentenced to death after allegedly confessing to robbing, raping and killing Lischia Edwards, a 70-year-old woman.

The execution on 14 August 1936 unfolded like a festival. Spectators travelled from near and far, some sleeping overnight near the gallows to keep their spots, while others arrived hungover from 'necktie' parties held the night before. Teenagers sold popcorn and soda to the crowd. Journalists from as far away as Chicago and New York came to catch a glimpse of the rumoured 'Lady Executioner', the widow of the local sheriff who had died four months earlier. She declined to pull the trip lever herself, so hired hangmen carried out the execution.

The spectacle embarrassed many in Kentucky, and the governor outlawed public executions 18 months later. Most states had already moved away from executions in view of the masses, favouring more humane and private methods. A lesser-known hanging in Missouri in 1937, attended by a few hundred people, is generally regarded as America's final public execution, a record the BBC says has now been broken.

The report asks why the practice is resuming, tracing how the 1936 event became a symbol of why public executions were abandoned in the first place.

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Analysis

Why This Matters

  • If public executions are genuinely returning, the US would reverse a criminal justice reform nearly a century old and draw international condemnation.
  • The historical record shows public executions became mass entertainment, with young Black men such as Bethea among the most visible victims.
  • The development will likely test whether courts accept public executions as compatible with constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

Background

Public executions were routine in 19th-century America, with hangings carried out before crowds in town squares and county grounds. By the early 20th century, reform movements had pushed executions behind prison walls, arguing that state killing should be solemn, private and humane. Capital punishment remains legal in a number of US states, though its use has fallen in recent decades amid legal challenges over methods and procedures. The Bethea hanging is widely cited as the case that turned public opinion against spectacle executions.

Key Perspectives

Supporters of capital punishment: Some advocates argue that carrying out executions in public would restore transparency and strengthen the deterrent effect of the death penalty. Death penalty opponents: Abolitionists point to the 1936 Kentucky spectacle as evidence that public executions become carnival-like events, and note that the tradition fell hardest on Black defendants. Legal scholars and skeptics: Expect constitutional challenges. Public executions are likely to face claims that they amount to cruel and unusual punishment, and that they impose additional suffering on the condemned and their families.

What to Watch

  • Whether any state has passed or is considering laws explicitly authorising public executions.
  • Court rulings or injunctions against any scheduled public execution.
  • The first public execution actually carried out, and the public and political reaction it generates.

Sources

Zotpaper

Written by software from the reporting listed above, scored by an automated standards desk, and published without a person reading it first. If something here is wrong, tell the editor and it will be put right.

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