The Nidal Hasan Execution

The story so far

As of October 11, 2026

President Donald Trump has approved execution by U.S. Army firing squad for Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army major and psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting. If carried out, it would be the first execution under the U.S. military justice system since 1961 and the first military firing squad since 1945. The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place.

This approval is the required presidential step for a military death sentence to move from judgment to scheduling. Hasan was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 and has since exhausted the military appeals process; the Supreme Court declined to take his case in 2025. He can still seek to slow or block an execution through a habeas corpus petition in civilian federal court, which means the timing remains uncertain.

What this has become is a test of whether the United States will actually resume military executions after six decades and, if so, by a method the government has recently moved to revive. The administration has broadened the list of permissible execution methods as lethal injection has run into drug shortages and botched procedures, and the Army’s readiness to schedule a firing squad now signals a willingness to use those alternatives. The decision also sets a template for the few other inmates on military death row at Fort Leavenworth.

The facts that anchor the case are straightforward: on November 5, 2009, Hasan opened fire inside Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center, killing 13 people and wounding 32. He represented himself at trial and was convicted and sentenced to death in 2013. He has been held on military death row at Fort Leavenworth while appeals played out. The case now turns on scheduling by the Army and any last-round challenges in civilian courts.