Ideological killers may seek execution as martyrdom, inverting the death penalty’s deterrent logic

Evidence

The death penalty is unlikely to deter killings of this type. For example, at his court-martial for the mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, the military psychiatrist turned Islamic extremist Nidal Hassan insisted on conducting his own defense. He also tried to plead guilty before the trial began, but military rules did not allow it. He was accused of trying to get the death penalty as an act of martyrdom that would be rewarded in the afterlife (Kenber, 2013). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1964

Categorization

• XREF: Directly illustrates the mechanism where moral disengagement through ideology (‘reward in the afterlife’) converts death itself into a sought benefit - strong corroboration that punishment threats fail against morally disengaged actors; relates to the Cooper/authoritarianism thread. — connects to: State execution manufactures the martyrdom that then amplifies dissent — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 339
• ADDENDUM: Supports the ‘On Sacrifice’ article framing: martyrdom-seeking turns the state’s ultimate punishment into a reward, showing how ideology inverts the cost-benefit of lethal sanction.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1964