President Donald Trump ordered an Army firing squad to execute former US Army Major Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, the Pentagon said Monday. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the order, which Trump approved, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said on X. The case puts final approval of a military death sentence in the president’s hands under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Who Holds the Authority
Parnell said the Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. He also wrote: “Judgment day for Hasan has finally come.” A military jury sentenced Hasan to death in August 2013, after finding him guilty of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder.
Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a court-martial death sentence may not be carried out “until approved by the president.” The Pentagon says Trump has approved the sentence and ordered the firing-squad method. It hasn't reported a scheduled execution date or place.
Hasan opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun inside a medical facility at the sprawling central Texas military base. The shooting killed 12 unarmed active-duty soldiers and a retired serviceman, and wounded 32 others, Parnell said. The spokesperson said Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar”—“God is greatest” in Arabic—during the attack.
Execution Methods and Precedent
The Trump administration recently added firing squad, electrocution and gas asphyxiation to the permitted methods for the gravest federal crimes. It expanded the options partly because obtaining lethal-injection drugs has grown more difficult; using those drugs has also proved challenging at times.
Military executions are rare. Death Penalty Action said an execution of Hasan would mark the first U.S. military execution since 1961. The Death Penalty Information Center says officials carried out that execution by hanging. The center reported that the apparent last known execution by a U.S. military firing squad took place “by musketry” in November 1945.
At least five states have firing squads on the books, according to the center. South Carolina carried out the first firing-squad execution in the United States in 15 years in 2025.
Opposition and the Case Record
Death Penalty Action, which opposes capital punishment, condemned Trump’s decision in a statement: “There is nothing Donald Trump loves more than the power to kill.” The group’s statement is the opposition identified in the report; it didn't describe a broader public reaction.
Hasan was due to deploy to Afghanistan weeks after the Fort Hood attack. Police shot him during his arrest, leaving him partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. He later described the attack as retaliation for U.S. wars in the Muslim world.
Debate over execution methods has also centered on lethal-injection procedures. Last week, Tennessee prison personnel tried to administer a lethal injection to Christa Pike, but the attempt went awry, leaving the death-row inmate alive, unconscious and hospitalized on life support. Tennessee had planned to execute a woman for the first time in more than 200 years. Pike’s lawyers had earlier urged the Tennessee Department of Correction to consider another method, such as hanging or firing squad, citing concerns about establishing a sound intravenous line.