[Vision2020] Fort Hood Shooting Suspect to Face Death Penalty

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the Army Times.

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Hood shooting suspect will face death penalty
By Angela K. Brown - The Associated Press

FORT HOOD, Texas — The Army psychiatrist charged in the deadly Fort Hood
rampage will be tried in a military court and face the death penalty, the
commanding general for the Texas military post announced Wednesday.

Maj. Nidal Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32
counts of attempted premeditated murder in the November 2009 shooting
spree at the Texas Army post.

It was not immediately clear when Hasan will be arraigned in a Fort Hood
courtroom. He must plead not guilty based on the nature of the case,
according to military law.

Hasan's lead attorney, John Galligan, had urged the commanding general not
to seek the death penalty, saying such cases were more costly,
time-consuming and restrictive. In cases where death is not a punishment
option for military jurors, soldiers convicted of capital murder are
automatically sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

"I believe the Army as an institution has long been planning to go this
route," Galligan told The Associated Press on Wednesday from his office
near Fort Hood, about 125 miles south of Fort Worth.

Two Army colonels who reviewed the case previously recommended that Hasan
be tried in a military court and face the death penalty.

Galligan has declined to say whether he is considering an insanity defense
for his client. He has refused to disclose results of a military mental
health panel's evaluation of Hasan but said it would not prevent the
military from pursuing a court-martial.

The three-member panel determined whether Hasan is competent to stand
trial and his mental state during the shootings. It also determined if he
had a severe mental illness that day, and if so, whether such a condition
prevented him from knowing at the time that his alleged actions were
wrong.

Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by police the day
of the rampage. He remains jailed in the Bell County Jail, which houses
defendants for nearby Fort Hood.

Hasan has attended several brief court hearings and an evidentiary hearing
last fall that lasted about two weeks. He sometimes took notes and showed
no reaction as 56 witnesses testified, including more than two dozen
soldiers who survived gunshot wounds.

Witnesses testified that a gunman wearing an Army combat uniform shouted
"Allahu Akbar!" — which is Arabic for "God is great!" — and started
shooting in a small but crowded medical building where deploying soldiers
get vaccines and other tests. The gunman fired rapidly, pausing only to
reload, even shooting some people as they hid under tables or fled the
building, witnesses said. He fatally shot two people who tried to stop him
by throwing chairs and killed three soldiers who were protecting civilian
nurses, according to testimony.

The gunman was identified as Hasan, an American-born Muslim who was
scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan the following month. Before the attack,
Hasan bought a laser-equipped semiautomatic handgun and repeatedly visited
a firing range, where he honed his skills by shooting at the heads on
silhouette targets, witnesses testified during the hearing.

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Date of last military execution	On April 13, 1961, U.S. Army Private John
A. Bennett was hanged after being convicted of rape and attempted murder.
(R. Serrano, "Last Soldier to Die at Levenworth Hanged in an April Storm,"
Los Angeles Times, 7/12/94).

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to
change and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown