Posted on 11/12/2009 11:44:49 AM PST by lbryce
Military prosecutors have charged Maj. Nadil Malik Hasan with 13 counts of premeditated murder in last week’s shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Tex., a spokesman for the Army criminal investigation division said Thursday.
Major Hasan, 39, an Army psychiatrist, is accused of opening fire with two handguns in a Soldier Medical Readiness Center, where troops receive medical attention before being deployed or after returning from overseas.
Of the 13 people who were killed, , four were officers, 8 were enlisted soldiers and one was a civilian. Major Hasan was eventually subdued by civilian police.
The 13 charges against Major Hasan are “initial charges,” said the Army spokesman, Chris Grey, “and additional charges may be preferred in the future, subject to the ongoing criminal investigation.”
“It is important to remember that the preferral of charges is the first step in the court-martial process,” Mr. Grey said, “and that a charge is merely an accusation. The accused is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.”
Col. John P. Galligan, a retired Army officer, who is representing Major Hasan, has questioned whether the suspect will be able to get a fair trial at Fort Hood.
For now, Mr. Grey added, “Major Hasan is currently under pretrial restriction while receiving medical care.”
Major Hasan is reported to be in stable condition in an Army Hospital in San Antonio, where he is recovering from four gunshot wounds.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Mark my words. II mean this in the most derogatory way) to say what a field day the press will have being able to report at eventually every opportunity, how the last two men executed in the US are Muslim.
Why not 14 counts? One of his victims was pregnant.
An enemy combatant in a US military uniform....just shoot him and be done with it.
Hasan is pretty p o’d that he didn’t get shot dead....Bet he’ll soon be writing to Obama....
And so begins the twenty year trial....
This asshole killed an unborn baby.
How is that not murder or manslaughter?
“Why not “treason”?” murder is simpler to prove and provides less points of argument for the defense.
Treason. Making war on the armed forces of the United States.
I would have no trouble with that or a hanging.
I agree...But the extenuating circumstances may dilute the 13 solid counts...The military justice system may not be the place for that issue...
Even though I agree there should be an accounting of that particular life that was taken as well...
It will all come out in the wash...
Like your idea. It does fit in with Geneva Con III an IV.
I don’t think the army has executed anyone in the last 50 yers. Any body know for sure.
Hasan should be prosecuted under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also known as Laci and Conner’s law, named for the pregnant woman and unborn baby who were murdered in California by Scott Peterson, the baby’s father.
Will he get the death penalty?
I do not believe there can be a treason count put against him, as the ideology that drove him to commit this murderous act...
Treason would have to involve multiple players involved with this incident, and they would have to be directly complicite in the act, and or recieve some sort of tactical advantage from these murders, like information, and or spoofing some direct operation against the enemy...
I’ll try to post the actual offence of Treason from the UCMJ...Or somebody might have it already...
Uh, missed one.
What extenuating? The soldier was holding the baby in her belly instead of her arms?
Maybe others of a “like mind” will get the hint.
The last execution by the military was 1961.
1961 - Death by hanging, approved two years earlier by Eisenhower.
But, Bush was the first President to approve a sentence of death since Eisenhower. That case is on appeal and might be decided sometime next year. If so, he'll be executed. This Hasan case will certainly end with a sentence of death, although it will be a decade - give or take - before a final resolution is determined.
Military court is *not* like civilian court.
He’s a dead man, walking.
[however briefly]
Treason and sedition would seem to fit. Texas should get a shot at him for the civilian.
I don't know how "circumstances" got deleted from my first post.
Look hard, because there is no Punitive Article on Treason.
Obama will respond by giving him clemency after a show trial. Can't set a bad example to the Islamic world by executing a Muslim for doing what the Koran commands: Killing infidels.
Lets not jump to conclusions here folks...The people that died misused the bullets that Hasan was giving away free. He was just misunderstood and treated very badly because he was a Muslim./s
Military court yes...but can’t the state file charges for the civilian killed? That would get him the death penalty, would it not?
That’s what I was wondering.
From the UCMJ:
918. ART. 118. MURDER
Any person subject to this chapter whom without justification or excuse, unlawfully kills a human being, when he- -
(1) has a premeditated design to kill;
(2) intends to kill or inflict great bodily harm;
(3) is engaged in an act which is inherently dangerous to others and evinces a wanton disregard of human life; or
(4) is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of burglary, sodomy, rape, robbery, or aggravated arson;
is guilty of murder, and shall suffer such punishment as a court-martial may direct, except that if found guilty under clause (1) or (4), he shall suffer death or imprisonment for life as a court-martial may direct.
Sure would hate for the scum to go to jail just to reproduce more terrorists.
Can he be charged with the murders and also treason?
The murders would be easy, but they probably need more evidence for treason. However, if he sent money to pakistand and was sending e-mails to bin laden, then it seems they have some evidence in those regards.
So, what is treason then? Can you describe a case of treason that would be easy to prove? We are devoiding the concept of treason of meaning. It means nothing. Noone ever commits treason any more. Just lesser crimes that are easy to prove in court.
If I were Hasan’s attorneys, my defense would be that his was an act of war and therefore, murder charges cannot possibly apply.
I wonder if he’ll demand to testify...probably against his attorney’s advice..and maybe he’ll admit, for all the world to hear, that his indeed was an act of terror, or Jihad..
Since he communicated with those who attacked on 9/11 and was very vocal about refusing to fight “his own”, aiding the enemy might apply.
[who knows what he knew and who he told it to]
904. ART. 104. AIDING THE ENEMY
Any person who—
(1) aids, or attempts to aid, the enemy with arms, ammunition, supplies, money, or other things; or
(2) without proper authority, knowingly harbors or [protects or gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly;
shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.
Personally, I think he’ll get CM-ed for the murder charges.
Probably but they can only kill him once and if I were him, I’d be a *lot* more scared that the military was gonna try me....:)
Right now, one of “the boys from NYU” (as Savage likes to call them)is getting on a plane with attache case in hand, ready to defend the “victim” who had a “mental breakdown”.
“Perhaps that is so ... but “treason” makes a statement and enforces the standard” What statement? What standard? The proper roll of prosecution is the easiest road to the maximum punishment.
His likely defense will be some sort of incapacity based on being brainwashed into Muslim extremism. He’ll likely make your points to try to save his life. There’s no necessity to make motive a necessary element.
Although a Court Martial will take time and he will be found Guilty the POTUS has to sign the Death Warrant. Our job is to make sure the current POTUS is not in the White House at that time.
I hope the Court Martial is finalized after 01/22/2013!
Where is the charge for the 14th victim???
Waddya mean?
He did everything but stand down at the main gate at Fort Hood with sign, "Death to American infidel dogs", while people drove by winking and nodding...As the FBI was reading his emails to al qaeda recuriters....
Of course you're right, it wouldn't be culturally or politically correct to charge a Muslim terrorist with treason or terrorism.
They have the option. It did not take them very long to put Timothy McVeigh down. What less than a year. We will see how politically correct they are with this one.
You ask an EXCELLENT question, “why not treason?”
Does nurder trump treason? I would think so, using
the Uniform Code of Military Justice or not.
There are REALLY sticky judicial questions here, that
so far, NO ONE to my knowledge has brought up, yet are
infinitely more important than the obvious ones about his
guilt and what his ‘appropriate’ punishment could or should be. Ever see the movie or read the book “The Execution of Private Slovik?” He was executed for DESERTION!
We’ve certainly come ‘a long way, baby’, since then.
How the Hasan case will be eventually ‘adjudicated’ is going to prove to be one of the most twisted and tortured processes any of us will ever witness. A good question, for openers, would be, prior to this, how many mass murderers
have been convicted of multiple murder charges, and have NOT eventually been executed? How long were they allowed to languish on Death Row? I don’t know the answers to those questions, but however long they were allowed to live, courtesy of appeals, you can expect Hasan to break the record. There is too much political hay to be made by the apologists, and this thing will NEVER result in this Islamic Jihadist being executed post haste, they way he should be. No, the PC backtracking and storytelling narratives that started IMMEDIATELY should have given us all a clue what to expect. The groundwork was being laid with great and sudden and almost instinctual logic, that we cannot see this as an Islamist thing, and this directive came from sources as diverse as Army Chief of Staff Casey to Chris Matthews. It flooded us from every direction imaginable, and caused tremendous outrage among those,especially military men like Ralph Peters,Alan West,
Ollie North and others, who just shake their head over the posture of self-defeating PC cravenness they see on display. 8 YEARS AFTER 9-11!! Underlying ALL of the pathetic CYA spinning, and all the halfassed Leftist PC rationalizations for Hasan’s Jihad (”pre-Traumatic Stress Syndrome??) is the understanding that we’d better not see this event for what it is, an act of terrorism. We’d better not dispatch Hasan with the same quick justice we did Timothy McVeigh, for example. No, to do that would begin a whole new round of Global Jihad and that might spiral out of control and we’d be in line for a new 9-11. Or something far worse than 9-11. That WILL happen if Hasan gets his due as a mass murderer. My guess is that, ludicrous as it is, his act of mass murder will only get him life imprisonment. Hasan’s punishment , if and when it ever comes, will be the most protracted, lawyer-laden thing we’ve ever witnessed. He is the new Hero to millions of Radical Islamists, bin Laden reborn, to be celebrated all the more since he lived in the very belly of the beast even more blatantly than the 9-11 hijackers. What happens to Hasan will be the most carefully considered ‘decision’ yet to be made in American Jurisprudence.
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