The Pentagon will allow live broadcasting of the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, a Defense Department official said. President Donald Trump ordered the Army to carry out the execution by firing squad, which would be the military's first execution since 1961.
The decision to permit cameras at the execution marks a break from standard federal practice. The Bureau of Prisons has historically barred all recording devices from its execution chambers, permitting only a limited number of witnesses selected by the condemned inmate and the government. A live broadcast of a military execution has no modern precedent in the United States.
Hasan, a major in the Army Medical Corps, opened fire at the Fort Hood processing center on Nov. 5, 2009, killing 13 soldiers and civilians and wounding more than 30 others. He was convicted in 2013 by a military court-martial on 13 counts of premeditated murder and sentenced to death. His case sat in appellate review for more than a decade before Trump's order moved it toward execution.
The firing squad method, carried out by a detail of soldiers, is authorized under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for death sentences. The Army last executed a service member in 1961, when Pvt. John Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for rape and attempted murder. The federal government executed 13 inmates between 2020 and 2021, all by lethal injection, ending a 17-year moratorium on federal executions.
Military executions require presidential approval under the UCMJ, a step no president had taken since Dwight D. Eisenhower signed off on Bennett's execution. Legal challenges to Hasan's sentence remain pending in military appellate courts, and the timing of any execution has not been announced.
The live-stream decision raises immediate questions about witness access and press rights at military installations, which operate under separate regulations from civilian federal prisons. The Pentagon has not released details on how the broadcast would be distributed or which media outlets would receive access.
