NBC: Fort Hood suspect faces murder charges

[NYC Liberal]

Source: MSNBC

NBC: Fort Hood suspect faces murder charges

Military prosecutors say they will charge Fort Hood shooting suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan with 13 counts of premeditated murder, a government official told NBC News.

An announcement will be made later Thursday at Fort Hood, officials said.

The shootings took place at Fort Hood's crowded Soldiers Readiness Processing Center, where troops get medical checkups before deploying abroad. Authorities decided to charge Hasan in a military court, officials said.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33886322/ns/us_news-tragedy_at_fort_hood/

[Heidi]

1. Man, I didn't see _this_ comin'.

Who'da thunk?

[JonQ]

2. Probably because of all those murders he committed

that would be my first guess.

[brendan120678]

3. Well, duh....

what else would be appropriate? He murdered 13 people.

[Common Sense Party]

4. Shouldn't this be a hate crime?

[Gin]

5. next stop he meets his 72 virgins

[alp227]

10. Yes, if bias against non-Muslims is found to be a factor

In sharia, it's called apostasy.

[JonQ]

11. I would say so

he certainly wasn't acting out of tolerance and love of diversity.

[Scurrilous]

6. Death penalty rare, executions rarer in military

<snip>

"Though the suspect in the shooting rampage at Fort Hood could face the death penalty, he will be prosecuted in a military justice system where no one has been executed in nearly a half-century.

Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist alleged to have killed 13 people at the massive Army installation in Texas last week, might also benefit from protections the military provides defendants that are greater than those offered in civilian federal courts.

"Our military justice system is not bloodthirsty. That's clear," said Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military law at Yale.

Much about Hasan's case will be decided by a senior Army officer — perhaps Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, Fort Hood's commander — including whether to seek the death penalty and, in the event Hasan is convicted of capital murder, whether to commute a possible death sentence to life in prison.

Before a military execution can be carried out, the president must personally approve.

George W. Bush signed an execution order last year for a former Army cook who was convicted of multiple rapes and murders in the 1980s, but a federal judge has stayed that order to allow for a new round of appeals in federal court. There hasn't been a military execution since 1961, though five men sit on the military's death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan."

more

[thunder rising]

7. I think hanging is the method of execution and that might pose a problem to the actual execution

I could be wrong, but the military has it's own form of justice.

[shawn703]

8. It's lethal injection now

http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/us-military-death-penalty

[clapnot1]

9. Irony can be a S.O.B. Also I wish someone would re-post the M*A*S*H Burns vs Winchester poll

Imagine a psychiatric going crazy...

And my vote would go to Frank Burns.
The guy you love to hate and then sometimes feel sad for him... but later realizing that he deserves it.

[24601]

12. He needs to consider how his glass is half-full. After all, he can

be executed only once. Not only that, it takes the military a long, long time get around to it.