Update on Hasan

[DallasSleeper]

Time to make Frost lose his mind.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/21...ince-massacre/

Report: Fort Hood shooter has drawn $278G in salary since massacre

The Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others during a shooting at Fort Hood has reportedly been paid more than $278,000 since the 2009 incident.

U.S. Department of Defense officials confirmed to NBCDFW.com that Maj. Nidal Hasan’s salary cannot be suspended unless he is proven guilty in the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting in Texas, citing the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Jury selection in his trial is scheduled to begin May 30.

[KBScobravert]

Should be only one question.
Q: "did you do it?" (yes or no)
A: "yes" (straight to the hangman's noose)
or if
A: "no"...

Q: then how the fuck did you end up in this situation?

[Forever_frost]

US Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, charged with killing 13 people and wounding another 32 at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, will soon face a military court-martial that is both controversial and long in coming.

Judge Tara Osborn, a US Army colonel, ruled Wednesday that the trial would go ahead at Fort Hood – the site of what a US Senate report termed "the worst terrorist attack on US soil since Sept. 11, 2001" – rather than be moved to another venue as Major Hasan’s lawyers had wanted.

The Army has said the officers who will make up Hasan's jury will be brought in from another post, probably Fort Sill in Oklahoma, Reuters reports.

RECOMMENDED: Top 5 attacks linked to Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki

Hasan's counsel had said the change in venue and jury pool were a question of fairness, given the saturation coverage about the shootings in the Army Times newspaper, compared with newspapers for the other branches of the armed forces.

Jeffrey Addicott, a retired Army Special Forces judge advocate general, told Reuters before Wednesday’s hearing, "This is such a high profile case that you can't go to any military installation in the world and find a panel which has not heard about this case."

Colonel Osborn also rejected Hasan's request to select jurors from the Navy or Air Force instead of the Army.

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The case and the upcoming trial raise questions about how Hasan was charged following the murderous rampage at Fort Hood, which was stopped when two military police officers shot him (resulting in his being paralyzed from the waist down).

Hasan was born in the United States and is therefore a US citizen as well as a commissioned military officer. But he had had e-mail contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born imam listed as an Al Qaeda terrorist and later killed in a US drone strike in Yemen. During the violent 10-minute episode at Fort Hood, Hasan was heard to shout “God is great” in Arabic.

The Defense Department classified the attack as “workplace violence” rather than an act of terrorism.

Critics say this diminishes the case, at least in terms of how it’s perceived.

“Fourteen people, including an unborn child, were killed by Major Nidal Hasan, a man that was known to have terrorist ties,” US Rep. John Carter (R) of Texas said in a statement e-mailed to the Killeen [Texas] Daily Herald. “This was a terrorist attack and it’s time to step up to the plate and give these forgotten warriors the respect and attention they deserve.”

Other military legal authorities say it makes no difference how the case is characterized since the charges against Hasan could result in the death penalty anyway.

But critics of the “workplace violence” designation say this prevents the Army from awarding Purple Heart medals to those killed or wounded in the attack.

Some of them are suing the military because they claim the designation gives them diminished access to medical care and financial benefits normally available to those whose wounds are designated as "combat related,” Fox News reported.

In a statement to Fox News, Pentagon spokesman George Little denied that any military victims of Hasan’s attack have been neglected in the wake of the shooting spree.

"The Department of Defense is committed to the highest care of those in our military family," Mr. Little said. "Survivors of the incident at Fort Hood are eligible for the same medical benefits as all service members. The Department of Defense is also committed to the integrity of the ongoing court-martial proceedings of Maj. Nidal Hassan and for that reason will not at this time further characterize the incident."

Former 1st Cavalry Staff Judge Advocate Richard Rosen told the Killeen newspaper this week that labeling Hasan as a terrorist would likely have little impact on the upcoming trial.

“This guy was taking direction from Anwar al-Awlaki, whom we thought was enough of a threat to kill with drones,” said Mr. Rosen, currently a law professor at Texas Tech University. “Ultimately when you talk about the baseline of the crimes he has been alleged to have committed, [it would have] no impact at all.”

Osborn, the judge in the case, has denied a request by Hasan's lawyers that the death penalty be removed from consideration in return for a guilty plea.

The judge is unlikely to accept any defense requests that would delay the court-martial, Geoffrey Corn, a former lieutenant colonel in the Army Judge Advocate Corps and now a professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, told Reuters.

"I think she is sensitive to the fact that this has dragged on for a long time, and it's time to get this case to trial," Mr. Corn said.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin in May.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2013/0321/Fort-Hood-shooting-After-delays-trial-of-Major-Hasan-to-begin-soon

[CJ]

Nothing would please me more than a sniper hitting him in the neck from 1/2 mile away as he rolls out of court in his wheelchair, rendering him a quadriplegic from the jaw down.

I laughed.

[DON SVO]

Nothing would please me more than a sniper hitting him in the neck from 1/2 mile away as he rolls out of court in his wheelchair, rendering him a quadriplegic from the jaw down.

[ceyko]

Screw accepting his plea.

[Forever_frost]

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — More than three years after the deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hood, an Army psychiatrist may soon describe details of the terrifying attack for the first time, if he’s allowed to plead guilty to lesser charges.

Maj. Nidal Hasan would be required to describe his actions and answer questions about the Nov. 5, 2009, attack on the Texas Army post if the judge allows him to plead guilty to the lesser charges, as his attorneys have said he wants to do.

Any plea, which could happen at the next hearing in March, won’t stop the much-anticipated court-martial set to begin May 29. He faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole if convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder.

Under military law, a judge can’t accept a guilty plea for charges that carry the death penalty. Hasan’s lawyers have said he is ready to plead guilty to charges of unpremeditated murder, which don’t carry a possible death sentence, as well as the 32 attempted premeditated murder charges he faces.

If the judge, Col. Tara Osborn, allows him to plead guilty, she will hold an inquiry in which Hasan must discuss the attack. If he says anything that isn’t consistent with what happened or indicates he isn’t truly acknowledging his guilt, the judge would stop the hearing and not accept his guilty plea, according to military law experts. He is not required to apologize or say that he is remorseful.

Some military law experts say it’s a legal strategy designed to gain jurors’ sympathy so that they might not sentence him to death if he’s convicted later.

“The judge has to make sure he’s pleading guilty willingly and that this isn’t a ploy,” Jeff Addicott, director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, said Friday.

A Senate report released in 2011 said the FBI missed warning signs about Hasan, alleging he had become an Islamic extremist and a “ticking time bomb” before the attack at Fort Hood. It’s unclear if Hasan would discuss his motivation, but the judge must determine if he is sincere in pleading guilty or is simply trying to avoid the death penalty, said Addicott, who is not involved in Hasan’s case.

Addicott said the judge will be even more thorough during the inquiry because Hasan is a psychiatrist who is “highly intelligent and knows how to manipulate human thinking.”

Witnesses have said that after lunch on Nov. 5, 2009, a gunman wearing an Army combat uniform shouted “Allahu Akbar!” – “God is great!” in Arabic – and opened fire in a crowded medical building where deploying soldiers get vaccines and other tests. He fired rapidly, pausing only to reload, even shooting at some soldiers as they hid under desks and fled the building, according to witnesses.

When it was over, investigators found 146 shell casings on the floor, another 68 outside the building and 177 unused rounds of ammunition in the gunman’s pockets. Authorities and several witnesses identified the gunman as Hasan, an American-born Muslim who was to deploy to Afghanistan soon.

Greg Rinckey, who formerly served in the Army JAG Corps and is not involved in Hasan’s case, said pleading guilty without a deal may signal to the judge that the government is being unreasonable by proceeding with a trial. He also said Hasan’s attorneys have few, if any, options for a defense.

“His attorneys know he’s going to be convicted at trial, so why not get some brownie points?” said Rinckey, a New York attorney who specializes in military law. “But once they admit to it, it’s harder to appeal.”

Hasan’s trial is expected to last through September. Prosecutors have nearly 300 witnesses, including a terrorism expert who will testify that Hasan is a homegrown terrorist. Among the mounds of evidence is a transcript of a telephone call between Hasan, while in jail, and Al-Jazeera in which he allegedly apologized for being part of “an illegal organization” – the U.S. Army. Prosecutors are expected to show emails that Hasan exchanged with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical U.S.-born Islamic cleric killed in Yemen in 2011 by a U.S. drone strike.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/02/fort-hood-suspect-could-describe-terrifying-deadly-shooting-rampage-for-the-first-time/

[Vertnut]

Duhwhine isn't quite savvy enough or able to compose sentences effectively enough to derail anything. Nothing wrong with that, since someone has to play second (or in this case third) string in this forum. Politics is simply not a subject he knows anything about.

It was a pun. Isn't he a train guy?

[The King]

I guess you could say the thread has been "derailed"?

Duhwhine isn't quite savvy enough or able to compose sentences effectively enough to derail anything. Nothing wrong with that, since someone has to play second (or in this case third) string in this forum. Politics is simply not a subject he knows anything about.

[Vertnut]

I guess you could say the thread has been "derailed"?

[The King]

This thread just got a little dumber with the arrival of duhwhine, and it was going so well. Such is the pity of public forums.

[dewayne6243]

Hasan has currently been discharged from his duties because he stands accused of murder and not because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Nice copy and paste work, Google Boy, but don't know why exactly you chose that subsection to quote since it doesn't apply to this thread topic. Maybe your lack of comprehension of what you googled perhaps?

Why don't you invite him over to the doublewide and teach him some intelligence.

[CJ]

And more to the point of this thread, it's already been ruled by two different courts that Hasan does not get a religious accommodation for his beard.

I agree with you CJ, but I think some things are being ironed out here that will set a good precedence for the future. I believe this could all have been settled had the commander just stepped up in the first place.

No one wants to lead, bureaucracy.

I should make that a lyric in a song.

[exlude]

And more to the point of this thread, it's already been ruled by two different courts that Hasan does not get a religious accommodation for his beard.

I agree with you CJ, but I think some things are being ironed out here that will set a good precedence for the future. I believe this could all have been settled had the commander just stepped up in the first place.

[CJ]

Reading more into it, I believe the appellate court gave us our answer...

They didn't directly rule on whether or not Hasan can be forcibly shaved. They just said that the judge didn't have the authority to forcibly shave him and that such a decision would have to come from his chain of command. To me, that indirectly says that his commander can legally make the order.

But, he comes from the Army medical community which isn't exactly the most disciplined, Soldierly branch.

It's just a cluster fuck. A judge does have the right to set forth a code of appearance in his courtroom. He could place Hassan in contempt indefinitely, but that doesn't help any of the victims get justice. The judge stepped up and took some action to resolve the situation and got reprimanded. It's just an example of a bureaucracy and how absurd it is.