Jury selection for the Fort Hood shooting massacre starts Tuesday, bringing victims and witnesses in the 2009 incident one step closer to an uncomfortable twist: Suspect Maj. Nidal Hasan, acting as his own defense attorney, will get to pose questions to those who take the stand.
“It’s hard when the guy who tried to kill you is up there asking you questions,” said Kimberly Munley, a federal police officer at Fort Hood who was one of the three dozen injured in the shooting, USA Today reported. “That’s a whole different monster.”
Maj. Hasan is an American-born Muslim who has admitted his role in the shooting, and now faces 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of premeditated attempted murder. He was paralyzed from the waist down during the shooting and is confined to a wheelchair.
He could face the death penalty — the first U.S. soldier to face such a fate since 1961, USA Today reported.
“This is probably the most significant military trial in the last 30 or 40 years,” said Geoffrey Corn, a former Army judge advocate who now teachers military law at South Texas College of Law in Houston, in the USA Today report. “There are a lot of eyes on Fort Hood and this case.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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