U.S. lawmakers’ efforts to award Purple Hearts to the victims and survivors of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting could be used as a defense for the perpetrator.
Initially, the government classified the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting that killed 13 and wounded 31 others as an act of workplace violence, despite former Army Maj. Nidal Hasan’s insistence during his 2013 court-martial that he committed the shooting to protect Taliban leaders from U.S. soldiers deploying to Afghanistan. A military judge threw out that defense, and Hasan was eventually convicted and sentenced to death for the shooting.
Because of the workplace violence classification, the victims and survivors of the attack were not initially eligible to receive the Purple Heart. But U.S. lawmakers added language into the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015 that expanded the eligibility for the medal. The new language allows the Purple Heart to be awarded if the perpetrator of an attack was in communication with or inspired by foreign terrorists. Victims at Fort Hood received their medals Friday.
Retired Lt. Col. Geoffrey S. Corn, a former military prosecutor, said the new language wouldn’t overturn Hasan’s conviction, but could be used by his defense as part of his lengthy appeals process.
“I do think it will add a wrinkle to the appellate process,” Corn said Friday. “If you are representing him, you have some ammunition that what he did would be considered an act of war.”
Corn pointed to the “defense of others argument” that was raised and later thrown out during Hasan’s court-martial.
“You have to remember that it was one of the real legal debates that he had with the judge,” Corn said. “This plays to that. He can say the Army now recognizes that what he did was an act of war.”
However, Corn doubted that such a defense would hold water, and characterized it as “frivolous.”
“What he did was unlawful under the articles of war,” Corn said. “It’s frivolous, but as a defense lawyer, your job is to present every defense you can. I think people will find it offensive, but you have to keep in mind the ethical duty of the defense to represent their client.”
Hasan is on death row in a military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.