Military to Seek Death Penalty in Fort Hood Shooting

FORT HOOD, Texas—Military prosecutors have filed 13 charges of premeditated murder against Maj. Nidal M. Hasan (pictured) in last week's shooting at a Texas military base.

Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty in the case, according to a military official familiar with the matter.

Christopher Grey, a spokesman for Army investigators, said Thursday that Maj. Hasan was facing 13 charges of premeditated murder under military law in the Nov. 5 shooting at Fort Hood, which killed 13 people.

Mr. Grey said investigators from the Army's Criminal Investigation Command and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are still probing possible motives for the rampage. But the decision to file murder charges against Maj. Hasan in military court, rather than in a civilian one, reflects investigators' growing belief that the suspect acted alone and without assistance from foreign or domestic terrorist groups.

Maj. Hasan's lawyer, John P. Galligan, couldn't immediately be reached for comment. An assistant at his office in Belton, Texas, said Mr. Galligan had not yet seen the charges. Maj. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, remains hospitalized for gunshot wounds.

Army investigators have analyzed hundreds of vehicles for "bullet evidence," Mr. Grey said, and continue to treat the locations of the shootings as a crime scene. These areas include the "Soldier Readiness Center," where troops awaiting deployment go for medical and dental treatment, as well as four adjacent buildings and two parking areas.

Some key witnesses are still receiving medical attention and have not yet been interviewed, Mr. Grey said. Base officials said 12 victims remain in local hospitals, one in intensive care, but all in stable condition.

The Army has said that 43 soldiers and civilians were injured during the incident, 34 with gunshot wounds.

The Army's intent to seek the death penalty in the case will likely set off years of legal wrangling in military courts. No active-duty members of the military have been executed in nearly 50 years, and defendants in military capital cases receive extensive legal protections that go further than those in civilian death-penalty cases.

Military prosecutors typically have to share more information with defense attorneys than is the norm in civilian cases. Military juries in death-penalty cases have to return unanimous verdicts. Even with such a verdict, the president has to personally approve the punishment and sign off an order to carry it out, further slowing the process. If the president signs off, convicts then receive lethal injections.

Fifteen members of the military have received death sentences in military courts in the last quarter-century. The last soldier put to death was Army Private John Bennett, who was hanged in 1961 after being convicted of raping and attempting to kill an Austrian girl.

Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar was sentenced to death in a court-martial for rolling a grenade into a tent filled with U.S. soldiers in Kuwait in April 2003. His case is stalled at the first appellate level of the courts.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2009

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