Whack job, in all senses of the term

Manny Fernandez has an article in The New York Times about Major Nidal Malik Hasan:

Wearing a camouflage uniform and sitting upright in a wheelchair, the military psychiatrist accused of killing thirteen people in a shooting rampage here appeared in court at his arraignment, without the civilian lawyer who had been his lead defense attorney.
The Army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, informed the judge, shortly before the arraignment, that he had released his civilian lawyer and would be represented by military lawyers from the Army Trial Defense Service who had already been working on his case. At the arraignment, Colonel Gregory Gross, the chief circuit judge for Fort Hood, asked Hasan if his decision to remove the civilian lawyer was a voluntary act. “Yes, it is,” Hasan responded quietly.
Hasan’s arraignment came one year and eight months after the attack in November of 2009, one of the deadliest mass shootings ever to unfold at an American military base. Major Hasan has been charged with thirteen counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. Colonel Gross set the trial date for next March. The defense had requested a delay, and the judge granted it. The prospective jurors, many of them high-ranking officers, will come from Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
The arraignment focused largely on procedural matters. In a wood-paneled Fort Hood courtroom, Hasan sat facing the judge, appearing calm and occasionally lightly rubbing his chin. He entered the courtroom wearing a loose green fleece cap, but took it off before Colonel Gross stepped into the room. Though Hasan deferred entering a plea, military law prohibits defendants charged in capital punishment cases from pleading guilty. At one point, a lawyer for the prosecution asked to read the charges, but one of the defense lawyers told the judge that Major Hasan had waived the reading.
It was the first time that Hasan had appeared in court since a pretrial hearing that spanned several weeks concluded in November. That hearing, known as an Article 32 hearing, is roughly equivalent to a civilian grand jury proceeding. At its conclusion, two Army colonels recommended that Hasan stand trial and face the death penalty, and the commanding general of Fort Hood, Lieutenant General Donald M. Campbell Jr., agreed.
It was unclear why Hasan changed his defense team. The civilian defense lawyer, John P. Galligan, is a retired Army colonel and military judge. In an interview last week, Galligan said he did not believe that his client could get a fair trial at the base. Galligan issued a statement after the arraignment, describing his departure as a “leave of absence”. He wrote that he would continue to monitor developments in the case, but declined to detail why he was released. “Over the past year, my family and I have been vilified by many for defending Major Nidal Hasan,” the statement read in part. “That disparagement is misplaced. You will recall that an early president, John Adams, was subjected to similar scorn when he led the defense of British soldiers charged in the Boston Massacre. President Adams reminded critics that he performed a vital role and served a noble function.”
Hasan has a right to civilian counsel, but he must pay for that representation, not the government, Colonel Gross reminded him at the arraignment. Hasan does not have to pay for defense lawyers from the Army Trial Defense Service.
Experts in military law have speculated for weeks about what the defense team’s strategy might be. Galligan had hinted that he would make an insanity defense, but it was never clear whether Hasan supported that approach. A military panel conducted a mental evaluation of Hasan to determine if he was fit to stand trial. While the results have not been officially disclosed, the progress of the case suggests that he was indeed found competent.
Richard Rosen, an expert in military law and the director of the Center for Military Law and Policy at the Texas Tech University School of Law, said Galligan’s departure would not pose a major problem for Hasan’s defense. “It’s not unusual to change counsel,” Professor Rosen said. “It’s like any other case. They may have had disagreements about what the defense would be. With almost eight months to go before trial, Hasan has more than enough time to prepare.”
Hasan, 40, paralyzed below the middle of his chest after being shot in the attack, has been held since last April at the Bell County Jail, in Belton, Texas, about twenty miles outside the Army base in Killeen.
If convicted, Hasan will join a handful of other men on the military’s death row, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Although the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of capital punishment in the military in 1996, military executions are rare. The last was in 1961, when John A. Bennett, an Army private, was hanged for raping and trying to murder an eleven-year-old Austrian girl.

Rico says hanging's too good for this guy...