At 1 p.m. Central on Dec. 3, the Army intends to execute Nidal Hasan by firing squad at Fort Hood, the Texas post where he killed 13 people in 2009. Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle set the date in a memo Tuesday, four days after President Trump signed off.
The coverage of that memo treats Dec. 3 as settled. The last time a president approved a military execution, it was not. George W. Bush signed Ronald Gray’s warrant in July 2008, the Army picked Dec. 10, and a federal judge in Kansas stayed it on Nov. 26. Gray is still on the Army’s death row 18 years later.
What the Pentagon said Tuesday
Dec. 3, 1 p.m. Central, Fort Hood, by firing squad. “Judgement day for Hasan has finally come.”
What happened last time
A presidential signature in July 2008. A federal stay 14 days before the date. A prisoner still waiting in 2026.
The Date Is a Memo
The chain was short. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended the firing squad, Trump approved it on Friday, and Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced it with a slogan: “Judgement day for Hasan has finally come.”
Army rules require the execution to fall between 60 and 150 days after presidential approval. Dec. 3 is day 62. The Pentagon chose almost the earliest date it legally could.
The Warrant Bush Signed
Gray, a former Army specialist, was condemned in 1988 for murders and rapes around Fort Bragg. His case is the only modern test of what a presidential signature buys.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1945 | Pvt. Eddie Slovik is shot by firing squad in France for desertion, the last military firing-squad execution |
| 1961 | Pvt. John Bennett is executed, the last US military execution of any kind |
| July 28, 2008 | Bush approves Ronald Gray’s execution; the Army sets Dec. 10 |
| Nov. 26, 2008 | A federal judge in Kansas stays it to hear Gray’s habeas petition |
| Aug. 28, 2013 | A military jury sentences Hasan to death |
| 2019 | The Army rewrites its execution regulation and drops the words “lethal injection” |
| March 2025 | The Supreme Court declines Hasan’s petition, ending his military appeals |
| Sept. 30, 2026 | Tennessee’s lethal injection of Christa Pike fails; she survives |
| Oct. 2, 2026 | Trump approves Hasan’s execution |
| Dec. 3, 2026 | The scheduled date |
The Door Still Open to Hasan
Some coverage has called Hasan out of legal options. That is true only of the military system. The National Institute of Military Justice’s CAAFlog, which tracks these cases closely, noted last year that he can still petition the federal district court in Kansas for habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2241. That is the exact route that froze Gray’s case, and the blog’s read of Tenth Circuit precedent was that it would likely take “a few more years before the end is nigh.”
A Defendant Who Fought His Own Lawyers
Here the case gets strange. At his 2013 trial, Hasan represented himself, and his standby counsel, Lt. Col. Kris Poppe, told the judge it was “clear his goal is to remove impediments or obstacles to the death penalty.” Hasan objected: “That’s a twist of the facts.” Nobody has said publicly whether he will file. That one decision separates a date from a placeholder.
A Method Picked by Deleting Two Words
The firing squad itself traces to a quiet 2019 edit. Army Regulation 190-55 used to specify lethal injection; the revision removed the term and left the method to whatever the Army Secretary designates. None of the announcements we read explained why Hegseth wanted rifles. Whatever the reason, the method arrives in a terrible week for the alternative: two days before Trump signed, Tennessee gave Christa Pike two doses of pentobarbital and she survived. The state has since cancelled every execution left on its 2026 calendar.
What the Pentagon Owes the Families
Hasan’s guilt is not the question. He murdered 13 people and wounded 32 more, and a military jury condemned him for it. The families have waited 17 years.
That is exactly why the slogan bothers us. “Judgement day” is a promise the Pentagon cannot keep on its own, because the decision that matters now may belong to a federal judge in Kansas, the same court that turned Gray’s date into an 18-year wait. We think Hegseth should tell the families that plainly instead of selling them a countdown. And a government restarting military executions after 65 years, with a method it has not used since 1945, owes the public its reasons in daylight, not an email and a regulation edit nobody voted on. If the firing squad is the right call, make the case. So far nobody has tried.