John Galligan, attorney for Nidal Hasan is complaining to the press that his client is having difficulty finding a bank to cash his military paycheck. Nidal Hasan is still an active-duty major in the United States Army and as such he continues to draw his bi-weekly paycheck, the monthly total of which is reported to be about $6,000.
As is familiar to readers of The New American, Nidal Hasan is the army psychiatrist charged with 13 counts of murder and 32 counts of attempted murder for the hail of gunfire he unleashed on his fellow soldiers at a processing center on Ft. Hood, Texas on November 5, 2009. On that date, Hasan climbed onto a desk and opened fire on the unsuspecting soldiers and civilians declaring “Allahu Akbar” or “God is Great.” Hasan is a Muslim born in America to Jordanian immigrant parents.
According to an army spokesman, service members continue to receive their pay packets while imprisoned, until an ultimate determination is made of their duty status as a result of a trial on the merits of the case against them. “He is a major in the United States Army and will therefore be paid until he is no longer a major,” explained Lt. Col. Chris Garver.
Hasan was shot by police responding to the scene of the crime and has been in a hospital or jail since the date of the attack. That equates to a sum of about $54,000 that Hasan has received from the army to date. Reportedly, those checks are being delivered to Hasan’s attorney.
In July, the Bank of America informed the UPI that they had terminated Hasan’s deposit account held in that bank. FoxNews.com reported that several local Ft. Hood institutions have likewise refused to accept Hasan as a client.
Galligan expressed worry that his client will not “get a fair trail at Ft. Hood if he can’t even get a bank account….” The army has responded that they are working with Galligan to find a bank that will open an account for Hasan.
The next procedural step in the trial of Nidal Hasan is the continuation of the Article 32 hearing that Hasan’s lead attorney, John Galligan, requested a continuance of when it originally convened in June, citing the need for additional time to read and digest the thousands of pages of documents sent to him by the lawyers for the Army. The motion for a continuance was granted and the hearing was rescheduled for October 4, 2010.
The Article 32 hearing is a requisite step in the investigatory process of court martial as established by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The hearing is similar in purpose and procedure to a civilian grand jury proceeding where a judge receives the testimony of witnesses and counsel to aid his inquiry into the truth of the matter set forth in the charges. At the conclusion of the hearing, the presiding officer will make a recommendation as to the disposition which should be made of the case in the interest of justice and discipline.
Joe Wolverton, II, J.D. is The John Birch Society’s constitutional law scholar and is the author of three books: The Real James Madison, “What Degree of Madness?”: Madison’s Method to Make America STATES Again, and The Founders’ Recipe, an introduction to the writings of the 37 authors most often quoted by the Founding Generation. He hosts the YouTube channel “Teacher of Liberty” and the TikTok channel “Joe Wolverton JD.”
