Firing-Squad Execution of Fort Hood Shooter Could Signal New Era for US Death Penalty, Expert Says

The planned firing-squad execution of Fort Hood mass shooter Nidal Malik Hasan could pave the way for more executions by gunfire in the United States, according to a leading death penalty expert. The method could gain momentum if the military’s upcoming execution proceeds without complications.

“I think it’s highly likely that if firing squad is successful here—and successful in quotes because we still don’t always know what a person is going through—but let’s say it’s a very quick execution, that it seems conceivable that it would be used on other inmates as well,” Fordham Law Professor Deborah Denno, an authority on capital punishment, told News Media.

Idaho, Utah and South Carolina have all considered or adopted the firing squad in recent years as lethal injection has faced growing questions over drug availability and reliability.

The Trump administration announced earlier this week that Hasan would be executed by firing squad. He was sentenced to death in 2013 for the 2009 mass shooting at the Army base, where 13 people were killed and 32 others wounded.

The Pentagon confirmed to News Media on Thursday that officials plan to livestream the execution when it takes place on Dec. 3.

“The firing squad is considered to be more certain,” Denno said. “It’s considered to be quicker, and it’s also considered to be the, what I call the least inhumane method of execution.”

Denno said condemned prisoners who face a firing squad are believed to experience less pain than those subjected to lethal injection or other forms of capital punishment.

She also noted that skilled marksmen are more readily available and often better trained than personnel responsible for carrying out other execution methods.

“We have an endless supply of people who are experts in shooting, either professionally, because they’re a police officer, corrections officer, or something like that,” she said. “But we also have people who are excellent, superb markspeople too, because that’s a hobby or whatever. So this is, it’s not difficult finding somebody who’s willing to do this.”

The Army says the last U.S. military execution was carried out on April 13, 1961, when Pvt. John A. Bennett was hanged at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Bennett had been convicted of rape and attempted murder.

Denno has previously described the firing squad as the most humane and effective execution method, citing the relatively small number of complications recorded throughout American history.

The method has regained support in some states that retain the death penalty, largely because of concerns about the limited supply of lethal injection drugs and uncertainty over whether they will work as intended.

Those concerns intensified last week when Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital. She became the first person in the modern era known to survive a lethal injection attempt, renewing debate over whether the method should remain in use.

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Pike, 50, was recovering after the injections failed to kill her. She had been sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.

Firing squads have generated far fewer controversies over the course of U.S. history, Denno said. Until recently, only two such incidents had been recorded—one in 1877 and another in 1951.

“Of course there haven’t been that many firing squad executions, but otherwise, given everything about the firing squad, these shooters should not be missing their target,” she said.

That was until last year, when questions arose surrounding the South Carolina execution of 42-year-old double murderer Mikal Mahdi, she said.

Mahdi killed two people in 2004. They were a store clerk named Christopher Boggs, whom Mahdi shot in the head while he was checking his ID, and off-duty officer James Myers, who was shot eight times and burned outside his own home.

The death row inmate had the option to choose lethal injection, electric chair or firing squad, and took the latter.

But after his execution, his lawyers raised concerns that none of the three bullets fired struck him in the heart as intended, prompting concerns that the cop-killer had been retaliated against.

“The shooters missed the intended target area and the evidence indicates that he was struck by only two bullets, not the prescribed three,” said Dr. Jonathan Arden, a forensic pathologist hired by Mahdi’s defense. “Consequently, the nature of the internal injuries from the gunshot wounds resulted in a more prolonged death process.”

The executioners in Mahdi’s case have not been publicly identified, but Denno said that they were presumably experienced shooters.

“This seems to be a really troublesome outcome, so it’s just something to pay attention to on December 3,” she said.