The U.S. Department of Defense drew global attention on the 8th when it announced plans to broadcast live the execution of a soldier who opened fire at a military base, killing 13 people in 2009. Nidal Malik Hasan is to be put to death by firing squad on Dec. 3, though the format of the livestream has not been decided.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said President Donald Trump had approved the execution of Hasan by firing squad. U.S. military regulations require that an execution be carried out between 60 and 150 days after presidential approval. It would be the first U.S. military execution by firing squad since 1945, American media reported.
Hasan was serving as an Army psychiatrist with the rank of major in November 2009 when he opened fire at a soldier readiness center at Fort Hood in Texas. Troops had gathered there for physical examinations and other processing ahead of deployment to Afghanistan. Thirteen service members and civilians were killed and 32 were wounded. A jury panel of 13 officers unanimously recommended a death sentence.
It would be the first time in 65 years, since 1961, that the U.S. military has executed one of its own. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the military hanged Army Private John Bennett in April 1961 for rape and attempted murder. The last execution by firing squad came in November 1945, just after World War II. If Hasan's execution is broadcast live, it would be the first shown to the public in real time, U.S. media reported.
The announcement has focused attention on the firing squad. In that method, a detail of several soldiers fires simultaneously at the condemned. The 1917 execution of Mata Hari, the archetypal femme fatale spy, is among the best-known cases. Seized by the French army on charges of espionage during World War I, she died under the guns of a 12-member firing squad.
In a firing squad execution, the condemned is led to the execution site, bound to a post and blindfolded. About 10 soldiers raise their rifles and aim at the prisoner. On a signal, the riflemen pull their triggers at once, and an ear-splitting crack is accompanied by flashes from the muzzles. The volley is fired together to end the prisoner's life.
The practice makes it difficult to determine who fired the fatal round. In some executions, members of the detail are issued blank rounds so that each can believe he may not have fired a live bullet, easing the psychological burden. Now a method widely regarded as a relic of a bygone era is set to return in the U.S. military.
Signs that the military was moving to resume executions emerged early this year. According to ABC News, guidance issued in February under a plan known as Operation Resolute Justice called for transferring death row inmates held in military prisons to the execution facility in Terre Haute, Indiana. That is where civilian federal executions were carried out during Trump's first term.
Executions in the United States are carried out by lethal injection and by electrocution. Because the U.S. Constitution bars "cruel and unusual punishments," a condemned prisoner who refuses the electric chair, which inflicts severe pain, may be put to death by lethal injection instead. In the military, however, the firing squad remains lawful. Public opinion that it was too brutal nonetheless led the military to rely mainly on hanging after the end of World War II.
Some observers say the courts could block the execution from taking place. In 2008, President George W. Bush also approved the execution of military death row inmate Ronald Gray, but a federal court later granted a stay and the sentence was never carried out. Even after presidential approval, an inmate can ask a federal court for a stay, and the execution falls through if the court grants one.
