Before his nitrogen execution last year, Anthony Boyd wanted to figure out a way to help people understand the horror he was about to experience. He told me to watch his legs. When he couldn't go any further, he was going to lift up his legs one final time. Once and for all, he wanted to settle that nitrogen executions were neither quick nor humane.

The State of Alabama controlled the gas, the mask, the restraints, the room. Boyd had nothing left to control but himself... his legs.

At approximately 5:57 p.m., the nitrogen began flowing. Boyd clenched his fist. He raised his head. Then he lifted his legs several inches, exactly as he had promised me. By my watch, he fought for his life for at least sixteen minutes, maybe even closer to nineteen depending on when the gas actually entered the mask. He was not pronounced dead until 6:33 p.m. Afterward, officials had the audacity to call his movements involuntary and insignificant. They all wanted to talk about the justice that was just done. I knew better. The lies and misdirections of government are always endless.

The cameras became the problem... not the killing itself. This should send chills down the spine of our country.

The primary thing that these executions produce is more horror.

As a spiritual advisor to men on death row throughout the nation, I have witnessed fourteen executions in five states, which is more than any other spiritual leader in the nation. Repeatedly, I have watched a condemned man's body tell the witnesses what the official statement would later explain away. I know what the government's descriptions and language of procedure can conceal.

I carry that knowledge into what is coming at Fort Hood. On December 3, the United States Army intends to execute Nidal Hasan by firing squad. President Donald Trump approved the death sentence in early October. It will be the first firing squad carried out under federal authority since the Army shot Private Eddie Slovik for desertion in a French courtyard in January 1945. The country went 81 years without doing this. Of course, it is Trump who is bringing it back.

Don't think for a second I am going to skip the horrors of Nidal Hasan's actions. Indeed, Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting. The people he killed had families and futures. The survivors have carried 17 years of consequences. Their suffering must never become an afterthought. Opposing this execution does not require anyone to shrink the horror of what came before it. But those deaths do not make the killing of Hasan an automatic act of justice. They also do not lift the moral responsibility from the president who has authorized the shooting.

Who deserves to die and who deserves to live? The rifles at Fort Hood will not go back to the armory when it is over. They will be cleaned, racked and kept ready for whoever is next.

The Army's own announcement lays out the chain. The president alone can approve a military prisoner's death sentence. Trump exercised that authority. He does not have to pull the trigger to own what happens when the rifles are raised. Other people will fire. The directive to shoot an unarmed paralyzed man will come straight from the Oval Office.

Of course, if the horror wasn't horrific enough. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proposed livestreaming the execution so the world could watch America kill Hasan. Trump argued that streaming it might be a strong deterrent. On October 15,........

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