Nidal Hasan Execution: Pentagon’s Livestream Plan Splits Faith Leaders

Seventeen years ago, an Army psychiatrist walked into a soldier readiness center at Fort Hood, Texas, and opened fire on troops preparing to deploy. Thirteen people died. Thirty-two were wounded. Now the Nidal Hasan execution has a date, a place and a method: Dec. 3, at the same post, by firing squad.

That alone would make history. The U.S. military has not executed anyone since 1961, and the Army has not used a firing squad since 1945. What has turned a long-awaited sentence into a national argument is a single word from the Pentagon: livestream.

Over the past week, the plan to broadcast the Nidal Hasan execution has split people who agree on almost everything else about the case. Most Republicans in Congress support the death sentence. Many of them oppose putting it on camera. Catholic bishops call the broadcast barbaric. Several prominent evangelical pastors say public executions have a biblical basis. And families of the fallen do not all want the same thing.

Here is what is confirmed, what is still being decided and what happens next.

What the Army Has Ordered for the Nidal Hasan Execution

President Donald Trump approved Hasan’s death sentence on Oct. 2, following a recommendation from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, according to Military Times. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced the decision on Oct. 5, writing on X that “judgement day for Hasan has finally come.”

Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle signed the execution order on Oct. 6 and set the time and place: 1 p.m. Central on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2026, at Fort Hood. Army policy requires at least 60 days between presidential approval and an execution. The commandant of the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, will serve as the execution officer.

The location is a change. Earlier this year the Army had planned, under an effort called Operation Resolute Justice, to move military death row prisoners to the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, according to Task & Purpose. Holding the Nidal Hasan execution at Fort Hood puts it on the same ground where the attack happened.

The method is also a change. Lethal injection was the Army’s standard method for decades. Under Army regulations updated in 2023, the Army secretary now has broad authority to choose how an execution is carried out. The Army is still developing firing squad procedures, including the number of shooters and the restraint chair, ABC News reported. Hasan has been paralyzed from the chest down since police shot him during the 2009 attack.

The Road From 2009 to a Firing Squad

On Nov. 5, 2009, Hasan, then an Army major and psychiatrist, opened fire with a semi-automatic handgun inside a Fort Hood readiness processing center. He killed 12 soldiers and one civilian, including a pregnant soldier, and wounded 32 others. The attack came weeks before he was due to deploy to Afghanistan.

At his 2013 court-martial, Hasan represented himself. He told the court he acted to defend the Taliban’s leadership. A military jury found him guilty on all 42 counts on Aug. 23, 2013, and unanimously sentenced him to death five days later.

Military death sentences get automatic review. The Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the sentence, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the military’s highest court, affirmed it in a unanimous written opinion rejecting each of his claims. In 2025, the Supreme Court declined to review his case. The last step under military law is the president’s personal approval, which Trump gave this month.

Hasan, now 56, has been held on military death row at Fort Leavenworth. He is one of four men there, along with Ronald Gray, Hasan Akbar and Timothy Hennis. Court records cited by ABC News show Hasan has said he hopes to die as a martyr.

The Livestream Decision Nobody Has Finalized

On Oct. 8, Hegseth told Real America’s Voice that the Nidal Hasan execution would be public. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it,” he said, according to OSV News.

A defense official told ABC News this week that the secretary is correct and that details will follow. But the president has not locked it in. Asked about the broadcast, Trump said officials are “making a determination about that,” while adding that Hasan should be executed either way.

According to ABC News, advisers have floated middle-ground options. One would broadcast the period before the execution and cut away before shots are fired. Another would place a camera outside the execution area, showing Hasan being brought in but not his death.

Inside the administration, concerns fall into two groups. Some officials worry that video could become propaganda for extremist groups. Others are uneasy about the optics of a firing squad shooting a man who uses a wheelchair. Three officials told ABC that Army planners were surprised by the livestream announcement.

Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson have both said they will not watch. Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Curtis of Utah have said they oppose a broadcast while still supporting the sentence, Newsweek reported. If it goes forward, it would be the first time U.S. officials have streamed an execution. The last public execution in the United States took place in Kentucky in 1936.

Catholic Leaders Draw a Line

The sharpest response has come from Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, who has led the Archdiocese for the Military Services since 2008. Fort Hood falls under his pastoral care. On Oct. 12, hours after meeting with Pope Leo XIV, he issued a statement asking whether the country wants to make “a public spectacle of barbarically killing our adversaries.”

Broglio told Catholics assigned to the firing squad to ask to be excused. He raised the risk of moral injury to the soldiers who pull the triggers, the effect on young viewers during the nation’s 250th anniversary year and the danger of the U.S. military appearing to imitate terrorists who film killings.

He has company. Pope Leo XIV wrote on X that the death penalty is “inadmissible.” Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, urged officials to reconsider. Bishop Daniel Garcia of Austin, whose diocese includes communities near Fort Hood, said a broadcast would deepen the trauma of those affected. The pope’s stance is consistent with the message he has carried abroad, including on his recent visit to France.

Catholic teaching has opposed the death penalty in all cases since a 2018 revision of the catechism. Broglio’s statement goes further than opposing the sentence. It gives Catholic service members a specific instruction about their own role.

Evangelicals Who Say Public Justice Is Biblical

Many Protestant leaders see it differently. Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress, citing Genesis 9:6, said capital punishment “isn’t God’s suggestion; it’s God’s command,” Newsweek reported. He said he would likely watch. Trump amplified his comments online.

Andrew Walker, a dean at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, argued in a Daily Wire op-ed that Hasan should be executed publicly, pointing to biblical precedent and deterrence. William Wolfe of the Center for Baptist Leadership said a public execution could help Americans grasp what justice demands.

Not every evangelical voice lines up. Missouri pastor Rich Bitterman told Newsweek he believes Scripture supports the death penalty, but he will not watch and warned against turning an execution into entertainment. That position, support for the sentence but not the stream, is close to where most Republican lawmakers have landed.

What the Families Are Saying

Families of the 13 people killed have waited nearly two decades for this sentence to be carried out. Their views are not uniform, and no one should speak for all of them.

Kristopher Craig, whose brother, Pfc. Michael Pearson, died in the attack, has publicly urged Trump and Hegseth not to stream the execution. He told reporters there is “a difference between accountability and spectacle.”

Can the Nidal Hasan Execution Still Be Delayed?

Yes. Presidential approval ends the military appeals process, but it does not end Hasan’s legal options. He is entitled to file a habeas corpus petition in federal civilian court, which could delay the execution for months or years.

There is precedent. President George W. Bush approved the execution of Army Pvt. Ronald Gray in 2008, and a date was set for that December. A federal judge stayed it weeks before. Gray remains on death row 18 years later.

Hasan has said he hopes to die a martyr, and he represented himself at trial against the advice of counsel. Whether he or lawyers acting for him will challenge the order is one of the biggest open questions. As of Oct. 15, Stucci Media could not find any court filing seeking a stay.

A Rare Moment in Military Justice

The military death penalty is rarely carried out. The last U.S. military execution was the 1961 hanging of Pvt. John Bennett at Fort Leavenworth. The last Army firing squad execution was Pvt. Eddie Slovik, shot for desertion in January 1945, the only American soldier executed for that offense since the Civil War.

The firing squad itself has been used in only six modern U.S. executions, all in two states, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The Justice Department proposed this year to allow it for federal executions, as states struggle to obtain lethal injection drugs. Those problems were on display in Tennessee this month in the failed execution of Christa Pike, which led the governor to halt executions pending a review.

Why It Matters

For the military community, Fort Hood was never an abstraction. The victims were soldiers getting medical checks before deployment, attacked by an officer who had sworn the same oath. For many veterans and Gold Star families, the delay since 2013 has felt like its own injury. A sentence that finally moves forward answers that.

The livestream question is different. It is not about whether Hasan deserves to die under military law. It is about what the armed forces want to show the world, and what they ask of the soldiers on the firing squad. Moral injury is a real concern for troops, and the chaplain corps exists in part to address it. When the top Catholic military archbishop tells service members to step back, commanders have to plan around that.

There is also a national security angle. The officials worried about propaganda are not squeamish. They are thinking about how extremist groups have used execution videos to recruit. A U.S. government stream would be clipped, edited and recirculated in ways no one in the Pentagon controls.

Readers who believe a public execution shows the seriousness of justice have a real argument rooted in history and Scripture. Readers who believe it cheapens that justice have one too. What is not in dispute is that 13 Americans were murdered on a U.S. Army post, and their families deserve a process that honors them. Stucci Media will keep following the case on our military news page.

What We Still Don’t Know

• Whether the White House will approve a full livestream, a partial broadcast or no broadcast.
• Whether Hasan or attorneys on his behalf will seek a stay in federal court.
• How many soldiers will serve on the firing squad and how they will be selected.
• Whether service members can opt out on religious grounds, as Broglio has asked.