Lawyer: Fort Hood Shooting Suspect Trying to Get Death Penalty (+video)
Photo Credit: APBy Nomaan Merchant and Paul J. Weber
The standby attorney for the soldier charged in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting rampage accused Maj. Nidal Hasan on Wednesday of deliberately charting a course toward a conviction and death sentence, abruptly halting the trial after only one day.
Lt. Col. Kris Poppe, Hasan’s lead court-appointed standby attorney, said he is willing to step in and be Hasan’s defense lawyer. But he asked that his responsibilities as co-counsel be minimized if Hasan, who is representing himself at trial, continues to work toward being executed.
It is “clear his goal is to remove impediments or obstacles to the death penalty and is working toward a death penalty,” Poppe told the judge overseeing the case at the Texas military base.
Hasan responded: “I object. That’s a twist of the facts.”
The judge, Col. Tara Osborn, then cleared the courtroom.
Read more from this story HERE.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Fort Hood gunman’s apparent death wish no surprise to veteran prosecutors
By Joshua Rhett Miller
The apparent death wish of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, which brought his court martial to a temporary halt Wednesday, came as no surprise to veteran prosecutors who have handled high-profile cases involving terrorists.
Hasan is representing himself but is advised by a team of attorneys appointed by the military court trying him for the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting at a Texas military base that left 13 dead and 30 injured. On Wednesday, members of his legal team told the military judge the former Army psychiatrist appears to be angling for the death penalty as he represents himself in the military trial.
One of the attorneys, Lt. Col. Kris Poppe, said he is willing to step in and serve as Hasan’s attorney, a day after Hasan gave an opening argument that lasted less than two minutes and included an unambiguous admission that he “was the shooter” who killed 13 and injured 30 in the Nov. 5, 2009, attack at the Texas Army base. Hasan’s court-appointed legal team is refusing to be part of a process in which Hasan seems determined to become a martyr, according to one former prosecutor experienced in terror cases.
“This is his soapbox,” said Andrew McCarthy, who, as a federal prosecutor, made the government’s case against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. “He’s really doing a performance to the world here, to the jihadists of the world here, and, secondly, he wants to get their case out there.”
McCarthy predicted Hasan will get the death penalty, regardless of how his legal team feels.
Read more from this story HERE.
