Trump Approves Firing Squad Execution of Fort Hood Shooter Nidal Hasan, First US Military Execution Since 1961

President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of former Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, the man convicted of carrying out the 2009 Fort Hood shooting that killed 13 people and wounded 32 others, setting the stage for the first US military execution carried out in more than six decades.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recommended the use of a firing squad for Hasan’s execution, with Pentagon officials describing the attack as having been carried out under an explicit self-identified ideology of Islamic jihadism against unarmed soldiers. “The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Monday on social media. “Judgment day for Hasan has finally come.” The Uniform Code of Military Justice requires presidential approval before a member of the US armed forces sentenced to death during a court-martial can be executed, making Trump’s sign-off the final procedural step needed before the Army can move forward with scheduling the execution itself.

Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol inside Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Center on November 5, 2009, targeting fellow service members who were preparing for deployment overseas. The attack, which killed 13 people, including a soldier who was pregnant, and wounded 32 others, remains the deadliest terrorist attack ever carried out on an American military base. A military jury convicted Hasan and sentenced him to death in 2013, and his final legal challenge to that sentence was rejected by the Supreme Court in April 2025, clearing the path for Monday’s approval after more than a decade of appeals working their way through both military and civilian court systems. Hasan is currently held at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he is one of four inmates on the military’s death row.

Ahead of Monday’s announcement, Hegseth had been vocal about his push for the execution to proceed, framing it as a matter of overdue justice for the victims and their families. “I am 100 percent committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan,” he said in comments to Fox News Digital. “This savage terrorist deserves the harshest lawful punishment for his 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood. The victims and survivors deserve justice without delays.” Hasan’s own writings from prison have been cited by officials as reflecting the ideological motivation behind the attack; in a 2017 letter, he wrote about seeking to undermine efforts to replace religious law with secular democratic systems, framing his actions in explicitly religious and political terms rather than as an isolated act of personal violence.

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The approval marks a significant moment for military justice in the United States, given how rarely the armed forces have carried out an execution in the modern era. The US military has not executed anyone since 1961, when former soldier John Bennett was hanged, meaning Hasan’s case would end a pause spanning more than six decades if it proceeds to completion. That gap reflects both the rarity of death sentences within the military justice system and the lengthy, multi-layered appeals process that has historically kept executions from being carried out even once a sentence has been handed down. Trump’s approval alone does not guarantee the execution will happen soon, however. According to an article published earlier this year in the legal publication Army Lawyer, Hasan retains the ability to delay the process, potentially for years, by pursuing a habeas corpus appeal through the civilian federal court system, a legal avenue separate from the military appeals process he has already exhausted.

Monday’s decision fits into a broader pattern that has defined Trump’s approach to capital punishment since returning to office. He resumed the federal death penalty after an informal moratorium under previous administrations, and the federal government executed 13 people between 2020 and early 2021 during his first term, a record that made him the most prolific execution-era president in the United States in over 130 years. That record has often been cited by both supporters and critics as context for understanding how the administration is likely to approach Hasan’s case moving forward, given the White House’s demonstrated willingness to move quickly once legal obstacles have been cleared. Asked separately about a recent botched execution in Tennessee, in which an inmate survived two doses of lethal injection, Trump called the situation “interesting” and suggested that carrying out lethal injections “shouldn’t be very difficult,” comments that drew attention given the timing alongside his approval of Hasan’s firing squad execution just days later.

With presidential approval now secured, attention turns to the Army Secretary, who is responsible for setting the specific time and place of the execution, as well as to whether Hasan will pursue further legal challenges that could delay the process for months or years to come. Legal observers have noted that even with presidential sign-off, the civilian appeals route remains a genuine source of uncertainty, meaning the timeline between Monday’s announcement and any actual execution date could still stretch on considerably. Should the execution proceed as planned, it would mark not only the end of a 16-year legal journey stemming from one of the deadliest attacks on a US military installation, but also a historic moment for a branch of the justice system that has carried out capital punishment only once in the past 65 years, closing a chapter that has remained open since the earliest days of the Obama administration.