A panel of 13 officers deliberated for more than two hours before sentencing Hasan for the 2009 mass shooting that killed 13 soldiers and wounded 31 others at Fort Hood. Hasan did not react to the sentence, which included forfeiture of all pay and dismissal from the service. The convening authority, Maj. Gen. Anthony Ierardi, must still approve the sentence, and then the Army Court of Criminal Appeals and the Court of Military Appeals will automatically review the case. After the appeals process is complete, the president must approve the sentence before Hasan is executed. Hasan, who represented himself, could choose to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. But despite the many unusual aspects of the case, the former military lawyers said there isnÂ’t much that should create problems during the appeals process.
The most common grounds for appeals in capital cases are inadequate representation and problems with discovery — for example, if the prosecution did not allow the defense access to all the evidence the prosecution presented, said retired Maj. Gen. John Altenburg Jr., who served as deputy judge advocate general of the Army and now practices law in Washington, D.C. But the Supreme Court has said that while there is a constitutional right to defend oneself, choosing to do so means one cannot appeal on the grounds of inadequate representation, several lawyers said.
Geoffrey Corn, a retired military attorney and current law professor at South Texas College of Law, said there are a few issues that could be raised on appeal, but he doesn’t believe any of them will be successful in this case. Still, he said, the case that established the right of a defendant to represent himself was not a capital case, so if the Supreme Court wanted to carve out an exception, “they will never have a better opportunity than this.” “I think the only risk to this case … is that an appellate court will say, ‘We don’t like the law, so we’re going to change it,’” Corn said. Because of the trauma and carnage that Hasan inflicted on the victims and their families, Corn said, “I think the outcome was inevitable.” But the way it played out is “a testimony to the credibility of our system.”
Everyone in the process, from the police officer who brought Hasan down and then began working to save his life, to the doctors who saved his life at the hospital, to the standby defense counsel who tried to represent his interests to the judge who protected his constitutional rights, “everyone in that process has demonstrated the victory of reason over power … of humanity over depravity,” Corn said. Many people, including some of the family members, have expressed disgust and frustration at how long the court-martial process took, but Corn said it took time because it was methodical, not because of a lack of due diligence. “What it teaches us all is powerful, and that is: How we treat the worst of us is really a reflection of the best of us,” Corn said. “He was just a beneficiary of rules that exist to protect all of us. … We get the right outcome, but we can respect it, because it was done right.”
‘It may be that he simply doesn’t care’
