The Pentagon’s announcement that it will livestream the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan — the Army major who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009 — represents a deliberate rupture in how the United States administers military justice. Scheduled for December 3 at Fort Hood, the execution would be the first carried out by the military since 1961, the first by firing squad since World War II, and the first in modern American history to be broadcast to the public. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth framed the decision as moral clarity: “Hasan is gonna get a firing squad of soldiers. As it should be.” But the move raises profound questions about the politicization of military justice, the erosion of appellate safeguards, and the signal it sends to allies and adversaries alike.
What Happened
On Monday, a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed that President Donald Trump approved Hegseth’s recommendation to proceed with Hasan’s execution by firing squad, with a livestream available to the public. The decision follows Hegseth’s appearance on the conservative outlet Real America’s Voice, where he dismissed questions about Hasan’s potential appeals or outreach to the White House: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3rd.” The announcement compresses a process that typically takes years — presidential certification under Article 71 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, appellate review by the Army Court of Criminal Appeals and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and potential federal habeas corpus review — into a political timetable. Hasan’s appellate attorney, Dwight Sullivan, told reporters the appellate process “is not over” and that a federal court stay is likely. The Pentagon has not released the legal memorandum justifying the execution’s procedural posture.
Hasan was convicted by a general court-martial in 2013 and sentenced to death for 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder. He represented himself at trial, offering little defense beyond stating he believed he was protecting Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Since his conviction, Hasan has remained on military death row at Fort Leavenworth, one of four current inmates. The military has not carried out an execution since Private John Bennett was hanged in 1961 for rape and attempted murder. The last firing squad execution was Private Eddie Slovik in 1945 — for desertion.
Why It Matters
The decision to livestream the execution transforms a judicial act into a political spectacle. Since the reinstatement of the military death penalty in 1984, every death sentence has undergone exhaustive appellate review; no sentence has survived to execution. The Trump-Hegseth approach treats that architecture as optional. By announcing a date before federal habeas review is complete, the administration signals that military justice can be accelerated for symbolic effect. This matters beyond Hasan. The military death row population includes Ronald Gray (convicted 1988), Hasan Akbar (2005), and Timothy Hennis (2010). Each case carries its own appellate complexities. A precedent of truncated review could pressure future administrations to execute rather than adjudicate.
The international dimension is equally stark. According to Amnesty International, only two countries conducted public executions in 2025: Iran (11) and Afghanistan (6). The United States has not held a public execution since Rainey Bethea’s hanging in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1936. By livestreaming Hasan’s death, the Pentagon voluntarily enters a category of state practice it has spent decades condemning. State Department human rights reports routinely cite public executions as evidence of judicial arbitrariness. Allies in Europe, where capital punishment is abolished, will note the contradiction. Adversaries will exploit it. The Islamic State and al-Qaeda propaganda apparatuses have long framed U.S. military justice as hypocritical; a televised firing squad hands them a recruitment asset.
Domestically, the move reflects a broader shift in how the Trump administration views the military’s institutional independence. Hegseth, a former Fox News host and National Guard officer confirmed as Defense Secretary in 2025, has repeatedly characterized military leadership as “woke” and in need of warrior-culture restoration. The firing squad — a method abandoned by the military in 1950 and by the last state (Utah) in 2004 — carries deliberate symbolism. It evokes a pre-modern, retributive conception of justice. South Carolina reinstated the firing squad in 2021; Idaho followed in 2023. But neither has used it. The federal government has never used it. The military’s adoption now, with cameras rolling, suggests the method is chosen for its visual potency, not its penological necessity.
Historical Context
The military’s death penalty apparatus has always been small and contested. Since 1916, the Army has executed 135 soldiers; the Air Force, 3; the Navy, none since 1849. The 1950 UCMJ codified death-eligible offenses but required presidential approval — a safeguard against command influence. President Kennedy commuted Private Bennett’s sentence in 1962; Bennett was ultimately hanged in 1961 after Eisenhower approved it. No president since has authorized an execution. President George W. Bush approved Gray’s execution in 2008, but a federal court stayed it. President Obama declined to act on any military death case. The system was designed to be nearly impossible to trigger.
Hasan’s case tested that design. The 2009 shooting was the deadliest mass shooting on a U.S. military installation. The court-martial lasted nearly four years. Hasan’s self-representation and ideological statements complicated the record. The Army Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction in 2020; the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces denied review in 2022. But federal habeas review — where constitutional claims like ineffective assistance of counsel (Hasan waived counsel) are litigated — remains pending. The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether the military death penalty’s current procedures satisfy the Eighth Amendment. In 1996, the Court upheld the military death penalty statute in Loving v. United States, but that case involved a non-capital procedural question. The substantive constitutionality of military executions after decades of dormancy is untested.
What to Watch
Three developments will determine whether the December 3 date holds. First, the federal district court in Kansas (where Fort Leavenworth sits) will almost certainly receive a habeas petition seeking a stay. Judge Julie Robinson, a George W. Bush appointee, handled Gray’s stay in 2008. Her docket will signal whether the judiciary treats this as a routine collateral review or an emergency intervention. Second, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces could issue a stay sua sponte if it finds the presidential certification procedurally defective — for instance, if the Judge Advocate General’s legal sufficiency review was bypassed. Third, the Pentagon’s own media operations office must produce the livestream. No military execution has ever been filmed for public release. The logistical, legal, and ethical protocols for such a broadcast do not exist. If the feed fails, is edited, or is leaked selectively, the administration’s control over the narrative collapses.
Victims’ families are not monolithic. Staff Sergeant Alonzo Lunsford, who survived seven gunshot wounds, told reporters: “I want him to know he failed. I’m still here.” But he also questioned the livestream: “That’s not for us. That’s for them.” Other families have opposed the death penalty entirely. The Victims’ Rights and Restitution Act guarantees victims the right to be heard at sentencing, but not to dictate method or publicity. The administration’s embrace of the most visceral punishment — and its broadcast — risks instrumentalizing grief.
Key Takeaway
The Hasan execution, if it proceeds on December 3, will not merely close a 16-year-old case. It will establish a new precedent: that a president can accelerate a military death sentence past its appellate terminus for political effect, and that the Pentagon can broadcast the result as a demonstration of resolve. The institutional guardrails that have prevented military executions for 64 years — presidential restraint, judicial independence, procedural rigor — are being tested not because they failed, but because they worked too slowly for an administration that equates delay with weakness. The firing squad is the message. The livestream is the messenger. And the audience is not the victims, the military, or the law. It is the base.
