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The Pentagon says President Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan. He is the former U.S. Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people and wounded 32 in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. As NPR's Rachel Treisman reports, if carried out, this would be the first execution by the U.S. military in more than 60 years.
RACHEL TREISMAN, BYLINE: Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Monday that death by firing squad was recommended by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Hegseth said last year he was, quote, "100% committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out" for Hasan, who has been on military death row since his conviction in 2013.
ROBIN MAHER: The fact that the president has approved Mr. Hasan's death sentence is another step closer to his execution.
TREISMAN: Robin Maher leads the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.
MAHER: But that does not mean that his execution will be imminent.
TREISMAN: Army regulations say an execution must be scheduled within 60 to 150 days after the president's approval. But, Maher says, Hasan could file a habeas corpus appeal in federal court. That could delay any proceedings by years, says Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School.
EUGENE FIDELL: We basically have gone out of the business, until now, of executing people through the military justice system.
TREISMAN: The last time the U.S. military carried out an execution was in 1961. That was by hanging. The last military execution by firing squad was in 1945, when an American soldier was shot in Europe for desertion during World War II.
FIDELL: In the past, presidents have tended to pass them along to their successor to make these kinds of decisions.
TREISMAN: Fidell says this exception speaks to two things - the severity of Hasan's crimes and Trump's broader embrace of the death penalty. It's not clear why the Trump administration specifically chose the firing squad method. The White House and Pentagon did not respond to NPR's questions. But some experts, like criminologist and Fordham University law professor Deborah Denno, think it may be related to Tennessee's botched lethal injection of Christa Pike last week.
DEBORAH DENNO: I don't think there's an accident that, all of a sudden, we have a firing squad execution case just within days of a botched lethal injection.
TREISMAN: The Justice Department and a growing number of states have recently taken steps to authorize execution by firing squad in light of issues with lethal injection. But firing squads have been accused of botching executions too, most recently last year in South Carolina. Rachel Treisman, NPR News.
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