Pentagon official says Nidal Hasan firing squad execution will be live-streamed

The Pentagon plans to live-stream Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan’s Dec. 3 firing-squad execution, a public step his attorney calls political theater while officials demand justice for the victims.

A Pentagon official told ABC News that the execution of former Army Maj. Nidal Hasan will be live-streamed. Hasan is scheduled to die by firing squad at 1 p.m. on Dec. 3 at Fort Hood, Texas, the same base where he carried out his 2009 attack.

President Donald Trump ordered the Army to carry out the sentence by firing squad and gave his approval last Friday. The move would mark the Army’s first execution since 1961 and the military’s first use of a firing squad since 1945.

Hasan, then an Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people and wounded 32 at Fort Hood. He described the attack as an act of jihad. He was subdued by military officers, left paralyzed, and now uses a wheelchair at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has long pressed for the sentence to be carried out. He told interviewers he would make sure “people are able to watch it, that it’s public.” In comments last September to The Hill, Hegseth said, “I am 100% committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan” and added that “the victims and survivors deserve justice without delays.”

"people are able to watch it, that it's public."

Army rules require an execution to be set between 60 and 150 days after presidential approval. Planners chose Fort Hood because that is where the shooting happened and selected the 1 p.m. hour to roughly match when the attack began.

Attorney calls Fort Hood return a public spectacle

Hasan’s longtime civilian attorney, John Galligan, a retired Army colonel and former military judge, spoke with his client after the approval news. Galligan said officials are “pushing to get this done at earliest time possible.” He called a habeas corpus petition “a distinct possibility.”

Galligan objected to bringing Hasan back to the base. He told ABC News he was “surprised and shocked that they want to bring him back to Fort Hood.”

"I'm surprised and shocked that they want to bring him back to Fort Hood. I think it's more of a public spectacle, closely akin to almost, I see it more as political theater,"

Galligan also said making the execution public is “not great for the confidence in our system of justice.” Hasan received word of the presidential approval late at night without his defense attorney present; Galligan described his client’s demeanor as calm.

The Supreme Court declined last year to review Hasan’s court-martial conviction, clearing a major legal hurdle. Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle, roughly a month into the job, sits first in the formal approval chain before the defense secretary and the president.

From lethal injection plans to 1959 firing-squad rules

Internal Army documents reviewed by ABC News show earlier planning under the name “Operation Resolute Justice” had focused on lethal injection at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. From the mid-1980s until 2023, lethal injection was the Army’s default method. Rules rewritten in 2023 gave the Army secretary broad authority over the method.

The service is now developing firing-squad procedures that draw on 1959 regulations never fully updated. Those older rules describe eight riflemen in a straight line 15 paces from the prisoner, wrists and ankles restrained, a hood, a four-inch target placed over the heart by a medical officer, and simultaneous fire. Between one and three of the eight rifles carry blanks; shooters pick weapons at random. If the prisoner survives, a senior enlisted leader fires a pistol shot above the ear from 12 inches. The condemned wears a military uniform stripped of awards and insignia and may make a final statement. Consistent access to a chaplain and reasonable final requests are also listed.

How those procedures will be adapted for a paralyzed prisoner in a wheelchair remains an open operational question. The same documents note four prisoners currently sit on the service’s death row.

Hegseth has kept high-profile justice and personnel matters in public view, including when he said Americans can watch Nidal Hasan’s firing squad execution and when he has confronted critics over military decisions.

Trump’s approval came days after a botched lethal-injection attempt in Tennessee involving Christa Pike, who had been sentenced for a 1995 murder. That sequence underscored long-running problems with injection protocols and helps explain the turn back to the firing squad.

Trump backs the death penalty, leaves livestream details open

President Trump has affirmed support for carrying out the sentence while leaving the precise livestream arrangements to others. In remarks reported by Breitbart, Trump said officials “are making a determination about that, but he will be killed” and added, “I really don’t care how he goes, as long as he goes.”

Public executions largely ended in the United States in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. The last widely recognized public execution occurred in Kentucky in 1936. A live military broadcast would therefore break with modern practice even as the sentence itself follows a completed court-martial and exhausted appeals.

Hegseth’s willingness to keep contentious Pentagon choices visible also appeared when he upgraded valor awards for three Abbey Gate Marines and accused the prior leadership of burying their heroism.

In 2015, while still a Fox News host, Hegseth linked the Fort Hood attack to a broader warning, saying, “We are at war. Islamics are at war with us.” That earlier framing matches the current administration’s insistence that the sentence finally be enforced.

His recent pattern of direct public answers includes the moment he fired back at Sen. Peters over Iran war criticism and offered the lawmaker a trip to CENTCOM.

Exact details of the planned live-stream, platform, access controls, and who may watch, have not been released. Galligan’s warning of a possible habeas filing means the Dec. 3 date could still face last-minute litigation. Soldier selection and training for the firing squad also remain unsettled in public statements.

Hegseth has likewise moved aggressively on personnel, including when he pulled six Army officers from a two-star promotion list in a broader Pentagon shake-up.

For the families of the 13 killed and the 32 wounded, the calendar finally shows a concrete date after more than a decade and a half of appeals and delay. The choice of Fort Hood and the 1 p.m. hour ties the punishment directly to the place and time of the original crime.

Justice delayed for sixteen years is still justice owed. The victims and the country deserve a sentence carried out in the open, without further excuses.