Today before this sentence came down, Hendrik Hertzberg published a very interesting essay @ NewYorker.com about ironic way the military justice system worked as to the two recent major military homicide cases where there was never any doubt about guilt:

Crime and Punishment, Military-Style

He points out that it works that Robert Bales didn't want the death penalty, so he plead guilty to avoid it. While Nidal Hasan wanted the death penalty, so he plead not guilty to avoid the death penalty being precluded.

Further ironies are that the Afghan families of Bales' victims are upset that he did not get the death penalty, while many of Hasan's victims and families wanted to see life in prison rather than Hasan getting a death he desires as a martyred jihadi.

Hertzberg then points out a third case

[....] Sergeant Hasan Karim Akbar, né Mark Fidel Kools, is also Muslim. He is an African-American whose parents changed his name when they converted to Islam. He kills two American soldiers. He gets death.

To sum up where we seem to be headed, as it is apt to be seen in many parts of the world:

• One dark-skinned Muslim with an Arab name kills two American soldiers. He is put to death.

  A second dark-skinned Muslim with an Arab name kills thirteen American soldiers. He, too, is put to death.

• A white Christian-American soldier kills sixteen Muslim civilians—three men, four women, nine children. His life is spared [....]

He then points out that

For an American soldier to be executed, the sentence of death has to be personally affirmed by the President of the United States.

and ponders the international and national political ramifications of having to make that decision and presumes Obama will have to make it. But the Daily News article makes it sound like Obama will be long gone as commander-in-chief by the time appeals are over for Hasan. I am wondering which is right, if there is some way Hasan can avoid the appeals?

(Gary Gilmore comes to mind, though not a military trial....)