President Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, the former U.S. Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. It would be the first U.S. military execution in over six decades — and the first by firing squad since World War II.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced the news on X Monday night, writing, "Judgement day for Hasan has finally come." Secretary of the Army Adam Telle said in an order released Tuesday that Hasan's execution will take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3. But Hasan could delay those proceedings if he files a habeas corpus appeal in the federal courts, said Robin Maher, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. "The fact that the president has approved Mr.
Hasan's death sentence is another step closer to his execution," Maher said. "But that does not mean that his execution will be imminent." For example, Ronald Gray, who committed multiple rapes and murders near Fort Bragg in the 1980s, is still on military death row despite having had his sentence approved by President George W. It's not clear why the Pentagon is moving forward now, or why it specifically chose a firing squad as the execution method.
But some death penalty experts that NPR interviewed suspect it could be connected to Tennessee's botched lethal injection of Christa Pike, which has dominated headlines and reignited debate over the past week. "For years now, states have been pushing this rock of Sisyphus uphill … They're spending millions of dollars, and yet they're having botched executions," said Corinna Lain, whose book, Secrets of the Killing State, was published last year. "So this moment in time is one where states are really thinking about: what are we doing and what best serves the death penalty?
Whether the answer to that is firing squad is another question entirely." The White House referred NPR's questions to the Pentagon, which declined to elaborate beyond Parnell's post. In his announcement, Parnell said Trump had acted on the recommendation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said last September that he was "100 percent committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan." "This savage terrorist deserves the harshest lawful punishment for his 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood," Hegseth told several media outlets, including The Hill, at the time. "The victims and survivors deserve justice without delays." Hasan was working as an Army psychiatrist in Nov. 2009, when he opened fire at the Fort Hood processing center where troops were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan.
He shouted "Allahu akbar" — "God is great" — before killing 13 people and injuring another 32. The attack ended when he was shot by civilian security officers at the scene, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Hasan acted as his own lawyer during his 2013 trial, at which he admitted that "the evidence will clearly show that I am the shooter." The American-born Muslim said he had "switched sides" and turned against the U.S. because of its military actions in the Middle East.
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