What Readers Need to Know

• Nidal Hasan is scheduled to be executed by firing squad at Fort Hood on December 3, 2026, at 1 p.m. CT, after President Donald Trump approved his military death sentence.
• Hasan was convicted of murdering 13 people and attempting to murder 32 others during the November 5, 2009, Fort Hood attack.
• If carried out, this would be America’s first military execution since 1961 and the Army’s first known firing-squad execution since November 1945.

By Samuel López | USA Herald

The U.S. Army has put a date, time and place on one of the most extraordinary death sentences in modern American military history.

Nidal Malik Hasan is scheduled to die by firing squad at Fort Hood, Texas, on Thursday, December 3, 2026, at 1 p.m. Central Time. Acting Secretary of the Army Adam Telle issued the execution order after President Donald Trump approved Hasan's death sentence.

Hasan was an Army major and psychiatrist when, on November 5, 2009, he entered the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun.

Thirteen people were killed. Thirty-two others were wounded.

A military jury convicted Hasan in 2013 of 13 specifications of premeditated murder and 32 specifications of attempted premeditated murder and unanimously sentenced him to death. The Army said at the time that the sentencing deliberations lasted less than two hours. www.army.mil

Hasan did not seriously dispute that he was the shooter. At trial, he described himself as a soldier who had "switched sides" and said the attack was intended to prevent American troops from deploying to Afghanistan and killing Muslims. He was shot during the confrontation that ended the attack and was left partially paralyzed.

What makes the December execution historically unusual is not simply the death penalty. It is who will carry it out, and how.

No member of the U.S. military has been executed since Army Pvt. John A. Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth on April 13, 1961, after his conviction for rape and attempted murder. Death Penalty Information Center

The firing-squad history goes back even further.

Many Americans associate the Army's last firing squad with Pvt. Eddie Slovik, executed in France on January 31, 1945, for desertion during World War II. Slovik remains the only American servicemember executed for desertion since the Civil War. But historical military records collected by the Death Penalty Information Center identify a later case: Dan J. Lee was executed by musketry on November 9, 1945, making that the apparent last U.S. military firing-squad execution. Army University Press

Firing squads have nevertheless returned at the state level. The most recent U.S. execution by firing squad was South Carolina's execution of Mikal Mahdi on April 11, 2025. Three prison employees fired simultaneously from approximately 15 feet away. Mahdi was pronounced dead less than four minutes later.

Military capital punishment operates under a separate legal system.

Article 71(a) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, codified at 10 U.S.C. § 871(a), provides that a court-martial death sentence cannot be carried out until personally approved by the president. The president can commute, remit or otherwise act upon the sentence. Department of Justice

Army Regulation 190-55 then governs the procedures for carrying out military executions. Current Army guidance places selection of the execution method within the Army's execution process once presidential approval has occurred. Federal Library

That does not necessarily mean December 3 is legally unstoppable.

Military appellate review has already taken Hasan's case through years of litigation, but federal habeas corpus proceedings remain a potential route for seeking a stay. Army legal analysis published this year notes that civilian federal courts can become involved after military appellate remedies are exhausted. Such litigation could delay the execution, potentially for years.

That distinction matters. The Army has issued an execution order. The President has approved the sentence. But until the shots are actually fired, the courts can still have something to say.

About the Author

Samuel López is a reporter and news correspondent for USA Herald with more than two decades of experience in the legal field. His background includes analyzing state and federal litigation, court procedure, appellate matters and complex legal disputes, experience that informs his reporting on military justice, capital punishment and the legal process surrounding government action.

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