Pat Dollard

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MSNBC:

A U.S. military judge Wednesday set a March 2012 court martial date for a U.S. Army psychiatrist charged in a 2009 killing rampage at a Texas military base.

At an arraignment that lasted only about 15 minutes, Major Nidal Malik Hasan declined to enter a plea before Fort Hood Chief Circuit Judge Colonel Gregory Gross. Gross granted a request by Hasan’s attorneys to defer the plea to an unspecified date.

Gross set a date of March 5, 2012, for Hasan’s court martial, where he could face the death penalty if unanimously convicted by a 12-member jury of U.S. soldiers.
Hasan, 40, is charged in the Fort Hood shootings that killed 13 people and wounded 32 others on Nov. 5, 2009.

Hasan notified Gross that he had released John Galligan, the civilian attorney who has been his lead attorney in previous court appearances. Hasan will instead be represented by three military lawyers at no cost to him.

Hasan, in Army fatigues and with a shaved head, appeared in the base’s small courtroom in a wheelchair. He was paralyzed from the chest down by bullet wounds inflicted by civilian police officers during the shooting.

Witnesses who testified at evidentiary hearings at Fort Hood in 2010 said Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” — Arabic for “God is Greatest” — and then fired on soldiers having health checks as they prepared for deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He would be the first American soldier to be executed in a U.S. military proceeding in more than 50 years.

Military executions are rare in the United States. The last was Army Private John Bennett, who was hanged in 1961 after being convicted of rape and attempted murder. The U.S. president would have to personally approve the execution.

The Fort Hood incident raised concerns over the threat of “homegrown” militant attacks. U.S. officials said Hasan had exchanged e-mails with Anwar al-Awlaki, an anti-American al-Qaida figure based in Yemen.