Trump approves firing squad execution for Fort Hood gunman, the military's first since WWII

President Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people and wounded 32 others in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. If carried out, it would be the first execution by the U.S. military in more than 60 years and the first military execution by firing squad since World War II.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced the decision Monday night on X, writing, "Judgement day for Hasan has finally come." In an order released Tuesday, Secretary of the Army Adam Telle set the execution for Dec. 3 at Fort Hood.

A long road to this moment

Hasan opened fire in November 2009 at a processing center where soldiers were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. Civilian security officers shot him at the scene, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. He represented himself at his 2013 court-martial, told the jury the evidence would show he was the shooter, and said he had turned against the United States over its wars in the Middle East.

A military jury convicted him on all counts and sentenced him to death. That triggered an automatic appeals process that ended only in spring 2025, when the Supreme Court declined to hear his final petition. Hasan is one of four men on military death row, all held at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the approval. Last year he said he was "100 percent committed" to seeing the sentence carried out, saying survivors and victims' families "deserve justice without delays."

Why a firing squad, and why now

The Pentagon has not explained the timing or the choice of method, and the White House referred questions to the Defense Department. Some death penalty scholars suspect the decision is connected to the national debate over Tennessee's failed lethal injection of Christa Pike last week, which has renewed scrutiny of execution drugs and medical ethics.

Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, cautioned that approval does not make an execution imminent. Hasan can still file a habeas corpus petition in federal court, which could delay the date. She pointed to Ronald Gray, whose death sentence was approved by President George W. Bush in 2008 and who remains on military death row today.

The firing squad has deep and controversial roots in American history. The first recorded execution by shooting on what became U.S. soil took place in Jamestown in 1608. The military's last firing squad execution was in 1945, when Pvt. Eddie Slovik was shot in France for desertion. Its last execution of any kind was a hanging in 1961.

Families still waiting

For the families of those killed at Fort Hood, the announcement reopens a wound that has never fully closed. The victims included soldiers and a civilian employee from across the country, men and women of many backgrounds who were preparing to serve overseas or supporting those who were.

Supporters of the decision call it overdue accountability for a terror attack on American troops on American soil. Critics, including some legal scholars, argue the method risks looking like spectacle and say the timing raises questions about whether the case is being used to make a broader political point about capital punishment.

What happens next depends largely on Hasan and his lawyers. Unless a federal court intervenes, the Army intends to proceed on Dec. 3.