The last time the U.S. military executed one of its death row inmates was in 1961, when Army Pvt. John A. Bennett was hanged for the rap and attempted murder of an 11-year-old Austrian girl. Despite being the newest addition to the military’s death row, Nidal Hasan (sentenced in 2013) will be next, according to a statement from Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell.
Also Read: The only 4 inmates on the US military’s death row
Hasan was tried and convicted for perpetrating a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended his execution, which was approved by President Donald Trump. Army policy dictates the execution must take place between 60 and 150 days of presidential approval. The date has been set to Dec. 3, 2026. Hasan will be executed by firing squad.
Hasan was a U.S. Army psychiatrist who opened fire at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center on Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009. He killed 12 soldiers and one civilian before being shot and wounded by Kimberly Munley, a civilian police officer who was also wounded in the exchange. Hasan survived and was left paralyzed from the waist down. At his court-martial, he was convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder, for which he was sentenced to death.
Read Next: This cemetery is the final resting place for the Army’s ‘dishonorable dead’
The U.S. military currently has just four inmates on death row, but has been reportedly planning on executing all of them, pending President Trump’s approval, since at least June 2026. At the time, the Army said it regularly conducts planning exercises for such occasions, just as it does any other mission, and it has for the past 20 years. Military executions are the only ones that require approval from the President of the United States.
“These drills are a standard component of our continued planning and preparation if the president approves a death sentence,” Cynthia Smith, an Army spokesperson told ABC News.
The final preparations for the death row inmates are outlined in a plan called “Operation Resolute Justice,” which would transfer each death row prisoner from U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the federal execution facility in Terre Haute, Indiana—pending presidential approval.
The only other approved execution for a military death row inmate is Ronald Gray, who was sentenced to death in 1988 for a string of crimes that included rape and murder. President George W. Bush approved his death sentence in July 2008, but it was halted by a federal judge before his scheduled execution in December 2008. That halt was lifted in 2016, leaving the door open, according to an Army legal review.
Two other military death row inmates have escaped their death sentences since 2013. Dwight Loving, an Army private who robbed and killed two taxi drivers, one of them a fellow soldier and another a military retiree (and attempted to kill a third), in 1988. His sentence was commuted to life without parole by President Barack Obama.
Andrew Witt, an airman who stabbed and killed another airman and his wife in 2004 was sentenced to death for the crime in 2005. His lawyers failed to present evidence that Witt suffered from a traumatic brain injury from a motorcycle accident. After a series of appeals, The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces forced a new sentencing hearing, where a jury sentenced Witt to life without parole.
Don’t Miss the Best of We Are The Mighty
• The US military can legally invade The Hague to free Americans from the ICC
• The story of the only US soldier executed for desertion since the Civil War
• Aldrich Ames, the Cold War’s deadliest CIA mole, completes life sentence
Loading comments…
Comments couldn’t be loaded. Please refresh the page.