Where are we on Hasan

The U.S. Supreme Court denied his petition in March. The QP in his petition is

A violation of the public trial guarantee is structural error, defying harmless error review. Weaver v. Massachusetts, 582 U.S. 286, 299 (2017). In Waller v. Georgia, this Court said the remedy for a breach of the public trial guarantee “should be appropriate to the violation.” 467 U.S. 39, 50 (1984). This Court later explained in Weaver v. Massachusetts that the appropriate remedy is, generally, “automatic reversal.” Weaver, 582 U.S. at 299.

The question presented is whether, in this capital case, a court of appeals may afford no remedy for a public trial violation where the defendant objected to the closure at trial and raised the issue on direct review?

The SG's Opposition restates the QP as

Whether the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces permissibly declined to order a new trial on petitioner’s claim that his Sixth Amendment right to a public trial had been violated, where a military judge conducted a 34-minute ex parte hearing with petitioner and his standby defense counsel to discuss standby counsel’s motion to withdraw, which implicated petitioner’s privileged information and in which the judge agreed with petitioner’s position opposing withdrawal.

Some media and commentators suggest that

Hasan, a former Army major, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2013, but exhausted his legal appeals in April 2025.

See, e.g., Lauren Keenan, ​Hegseth seeks death penalty for Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan. SAN, 24 September 2025.

1. I think the writer means to say that Sec. Hegseth is now seeking approval to schedule the execution of the death penalty, that's been adjudged and affirmed. Under the old Article 71(a), the President had to personally approve proceeding with the execution. The better question is when that might happen.

In 1987-88, Gray was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. (He had already pled guilty to the crimes in state court where he was adjudged 8 life sentences.) On 28 July 2008, President G. W. Bush approved the execution under the old Article 71(a), the execution was scheduled for December 2008. However, that execution was and is still delayed, so here we are 35+ years after the court-martial. There are others in the pipeline--Hennis (United States v. Hennis, 79 M.J. 370 (C.A.A.F. 2020) cert. denied, Hennis v. United States, No. 20-301, 2021 U.S. LEXIS 193 (U.S. Jan. 11, 2021);  Akbar (United States v. Akbar, 74 M.J. 364 (C.A.A.F. 2015) cert. denied, Akbar v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 41, 196 L. Ed. 2d 27, 2016 U.S. LEXIS 5191 (U.S., Oct. 3, 2016); but Gray remains the closest to a lethal injection at the moment. Like Bennett, Gray seems to have significant mental health issues.

The Death Penalty Information Center lists maintains this concise case capsules of every modern military death case; the following dispositions reflect that compilation, supplemented with primary records where available.

• Andrew P. Witt (Air Force) — Death sentence set aside; resentenced to life without parole (July 6, 2018). CAAF set aside Witt’s death sentence and ordered a new sentencing proceeding; the rehearing panel imposed LWOP in 2018. U.S. Courts - Armored Forces+1
• Dwight J. Loving (Army) — Death sentence commuted to life without parole by President Obama (Jan. 17, 2017); removed from death row. White House/DPIC coverage and secondary histories. Death Penalty Information Center+1
• Kenneth Parker (USMC) — Death sentence reversed; resentenced to life (2012). Death Penalty Information Center
• Wade Walker (USMC) — Death sentence; resentenced to life (Feb. 2010). Death Penalty Information Center
• Jessie Quintanilla (USMC) — Death sentence; resentenced to life without parole (2010). Death Penalty Information Center
• William Kreutzer (Army) — Death sentence; later sentence reduced to life. Death Penalty Information Center
• James T. Murphy (Army) — Death sentence; later serving life. Death Penalty Information Center
• Jose F. Simoy (Air Force) — Death sentence (1992) later overturned; serving life. (AF news release and scholarly treatment summarize the final outcome.) Air Force Medical Command+1
• Todd A. Dock (Army) — Death sentence (1984) overturned by Army Court of Military Review in 1988; convictions and sentence set aside; case reheard (ultimately not a death case). (Contemporary reporting and subsequent pay-claims litigation trace the set-aside and rehearing.) The Washington Post+1
• Melvin Turner (Army) — Death sentence (1985) overturned by the convening authority prior to appeal. Death Penalty Information Center
• Ronnie A. Curtis (USMC) — Death sentence (1987) later vacated; no longer a capital case. (DPIC list; historic press coverage.) Death Penalty Information Center+2Los Angeles Times+2
• Joseph L. Thomas (USMC) — Death sentence (1988); later proceedings removed him from death row (no longer listed among current death-row prisoners). (DPIC list and contemporaneous coverage.) DPIC
• Curtis A. Gibbs (Army) — Death sentence (1990) overturned by the convening authority prior to appeal. DPIC

2. Hasan has exhausted his appellate rights under the UCMJ. However, he still has some "legal appeals" left. He is now in what might be called the collateral review stage where he can file for a writ of habeas corpus in the Federal District Court for Kansas under 28 U.S.C. 2241 and seek a stay of execution, pending resolution of any collateral review. Based on the law in the 10th circuit, his chances of success would normally be considered low to none. In the event he is denied relief then he can seek review before the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and then the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite the long standing government-centric standard of review, it is likely to be a few more years before the end is nigh.