Nidal Malik Hasan’s Execution Date: Appeals, Army Prep, Approval

There is no scheduled execution date for Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army major convicted of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting that killed 13 people and wounded 32 others. As of mid-2026, his direct appeals are exhausted and senior Pentagon officials have publicly committed to carrying out his death sentence, but President Trump has not signed the execution order that military law requires before the Army can schedule anything.¹

What Has to Happen Before a Date Can Be Set

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the President is the only official who can approve and order the execution of a military death sentence.² Until a president signs, no date exists and no date can exist.

The paperwork chain sits above the President. Once appellate review ends, the Judge Advocate General assembles the trial record, appellate record, and any clemency petitions, then sends a recommendation to the Secretary of the Army. The Secretary reviews and forwards the package to the White House. If the President approves the sentence, the Secretary of the Army then designates the method and location of execution and sets a date, which must fall within 60 to 150 days of that approval.²

As of mid-2026, the Army has confirmed that it has not received a specific order from the President regarding any military death row inmate, and the White House has not publicly said whether the President intends to sign one for Hasan.¹

Where the Appeals Stand

Military death sentences trigger automatic appellate review, and Hasan’s case moved through that system for more than a decade. The U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces affirmed the judgment on March 4, 2024, after rejecting Hasan’s motion to reverse the death sentence in September 2023.³⁴

Hasan then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. The Court denied his petition for a writ of certiorari in the spring of 2025, ending his direct appeals under the UCMJ.⁵ That is what has cleared the procedural way for a presidential decision. It is also why the case is back in the news.

What the Army Has Done to Prepare

The Army has been readying the logistics even without an order in hand. In February 2026, it issued an internal directive called Operation Resolute Justice, laying out how it would carry out military executions if the President authorizes them.¹ The directive tells Army officials to coordinate with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer death row inmates from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, where Hasan has been held since 2013, to the federal execution facility at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, which has been the site of all federal executions since 2001.⁶ It requires Army components to be ready to facilitate executions within 150 days of presidential approval, and it includes protocols for witness viewing stations and media access.

Army spokesperson Cynthia Smith described the planning as routine, saying the service has conducted similar exercises “regularly for the past twenty years” in anticipation of possible orders from the White House.¹

What the Administration Has Said

On his first day back in office in January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety,” directing the Justice Department to reinstate and more aggressively pursue capital punishment at the federal level and reversing the Biden administration’s moratorium on federal executions.⁷

In September 2025, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said he was “100 percent committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan,” called Hasan a “savage terrorist,” and said “the victims and survivors deserve justice without delays.”⁸ In April 2026, the Justice Department announced steps to accelerate executions, including expanding authorized methods to include firing squads.⁹ No specific method has been publicly designated for Hasan.

None of that is the signature the UCMJ requires. Commitments and executive orders are not execution orders, and the Army has been explicit that no specific order has arrived.¹

What Could Still Delay an Execution After a Signature

Even if the President signs, a date is not the end of the litigation. Legal analysts have noted that Hasan could still file for a writ of habeas corpus in the Federal District Court for Kansas, and a federal judge could grant a stay of execution while those proceedings continue.¹⁰

The recent history of military death row shows how long that can take. Ronald Gray, a former Army specialist convicted in 1988 of three counts of premeditated murder and three counts of rape near Fort Bragg, is the only current military death row inmate for whom a president has signed an execution order. President George W. Bush approved it in 2008. A federal judge stayed the execution, and although the stay was lifted in 2016, Gray remains alive at Fort Leavenworth.¹

Legal experts have observed that the military death penalty system has effectively been dormant for decades because of these layered procedural requirements, and some have described it as functionally “dead” without substantial reform.¹⁰ If Hasan is executed, it would be the first military execution in more than 60 years. The last was that of Army Private John Bennett, hanged at Fort Leavenworth in 1961 after being convicted of raping and attempting to murder an 11-year-old girl in Austria; President Eisenhower signed the death warrant and President Kennedy declined to intervene.¹¹

The Underlying Case

Hasan was a military psychiatrist. On November 5, 2009, he entered the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, Texas, where soldiers were completing paperwork ahead of overseas deployments, shouted “Allahu akbar,” and opened fire with an FN 5-7 pistol. The rampage lasted roughly ten minutes, and investigators later recovered 214 spent shell casings.¹² Thirteen people were killed and 32 wounded. A Fort Hood civilian police sergeant shot Hasan, severing his spinal cord and leaving him paralyzed from the chest down; he has used a wheelchair ever since.¹³

Hasan represented himself at his 2013 court-martial after firing his defense team, told the panel in his opening statement that “the evidence will clearly show I am the shooter,” and put on no defense.³ On August 23, 2013, a panel of 13 senior military officers convicted him on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. Five days later, on August 28, the panel unanimously sentenced him to death.¹² He has been on military death row at Fort Leavenworth since.¹⁴

The short version of where things stand: appeals are done, the Army has drafted its logistics, the Secretary of War has publicly committed to the execution, and the only remaining step before a date can be set is a presidential signature that has not come.

1
ABC News. Army Lays Groundwork for Death Row Executions With Trump Approval
2
U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps. From Soldier to Condemned Prisoner
3
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. United States v. Hasan, No. 21-0193
4
Army Times. Death Penalty Upheld for Soldier Who Killed 13 in Base Shooting
5
San Antonio Express-News. Nidal Hasan Fort Hood Loses Appeal Supreme Court
6
Yahoo News. Army Plan for Military Death Row
7
The White House. Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety
8
KWTX. Survivor of 2009 Fort Hood Massacre Speaks After Hearing of Shooter’s Possible Execution
9
U.S. Department of Justice. Justice Department Takes Actions to Strengthen Federal Death Penalty
10
National Institute of Military Justice. Where Are We on Hasan
11
CNN. Military Execution Soldier Profile
12
KWTX. 10 Minutes of Gunfire 10 Years Ago Left 13 Dead, More Than 30 Injured
13
ABC News. Defense Attorney Says Hasan Paralyzed From Chest
14
KMBC. Fort Hood Shooter Arrives at Leavenworth Death Row