The Pentagon has announced that Hasan Nidal will be executed by firing squad at Fort Hood in Texas on 3 December, setting up the US military’s rarest punishment for one of its most notorious cases. The former US Army major is now one of four inmates on the military’s death row.
The move matters because the method itself is almost unheard of in the military system. This would be the first military execution by firing squad since the end of World War Two, and it lands nearly 16 years after Hasan fatally shot 13 unarmed soldiers and injured another 32 at Fort Hood.
That attack, carried out on 5 November 2009 in a crowded medical building where deploying soldiers were waiting for check-ups and vaccines, was the deadliest ever non-combat attack on an American military base. Hasan later admitted in court that he was the gunman and apologized for “any mistakes,” while also telling the court-martial in 2013 that he believed he was protecting Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The announcement came after Sean Parnell said on social media on Monday that Pete Hegseth had made the recommendation and Donald Trump had approved it. Military law does allow the president to authorize a military execution, but it also requires appellate review and a final judgment on the legality of the sentence before it can move ahead, which is where the case still carries its sharpest question.
The broader backdrop is a death penalty system that has largely shifted outside the military. Most executions in the US are carried out at the state level, though 27 states, the military and the federal government still keep capital punishment as a legal option. The military death penalty was ruled unconstitutional in 1983 by the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, then reinstated in 1984 by an executive order under Ronald Reagan.
There is also a wider return to the firing squad as a method. Last year, South Carolina carried out an execution by firing squad, the first for that state and the first use of the method in the US in 15 years. Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah also allow it. With Hasan now facing a December date at Fort Hood, the remaining issue is whether the required military legal steps are complete enough for the sentence to survive to the end.
