Reuters

The issue of whether Maj. Nidal Hasan, charged with 13 counts of murder, should shave his beard resulted in a judge's removal.

The highest military appellate court ordered on Monday the removal of the judge overseeing the trial of Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people at the Fort Hood Army base in 2009.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces wrote in an opinion that Col. Gregory Gross should be removed for the appearance of bias -- in part because he demanded that Hasan's beard be shaved.

“The command, and not the military judge, has the primary responsibility for the enforcement of grooming standards,” the court wrote in a 10-page opinion. “A military judge’s contempt authority is directed toward control of the courtroom. Although the military judge here stated that (Hasan’s) beard was a ‘disruption,’ there was insufficient evidence on this record to demonstration that (his) beard materially interfered with the proceedings.”

Further, the opinion stated, the judge and his family were present at Fort Hood on the day of the shootings.

“While this fact alone is not disqualifying, when viewed in light of the factors identified above, an objective observer might reasonably question the military judge’s impartiality,” the opinion read.

Related: Court rules Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal Hasan must shave beard  

Army grooming standards prohibit beards but allow for religious exceptions. Judge Gross had denied Hasan's request for such an exception. He found that Hasan's claims of religious sincerity did not outweigh prosecutor's arguments that Hasan grew the beard just before his August trial date so witnesses wouldn't be able to identify him in court.

Hasan, 42, faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole if convicted in the Nov. 5, 2009, attack at the Army post about 130 miles southwest of Dallas. In addition to those killed, 29 were wounded. His trial had been placed on hold pending the issue of whether he must shave his beard.  

His lawyers argued that he wears a beard because of he is devoutly Muslim and that requiring him to shave it would amount to religious discrimination.

Monday’s court opinion does not resolve the issue of his beard, however: “Should the next military judge find it necessary to address (his) beard, such issues should be addressed and litigated anew.”

A new judge has not been assigned to the case.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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On the third anniversary of the Fort Hood rampage, 148 victims and family members sued the government Monday for compensation for the attack that authorities say was carried out by an Army psychiatrist.

The shooting at the Army base in Texas killed 13 people and wounded more than two dozen others.

The lawsuit alleging negligence by the government said that the Defense Department is avoiding legal and financial responsibility for the killings by referring to the shootings as "workplace violence" rather than as a terrorist attack.

The group also is suing the estate of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Islamic cleric who the victims say inspired the Army psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Hasan, to carry out the attack. The two men exchanged emails before the shootings.

A year before the attack, the FBI uncovered the communications between Hasan and al-Awlaki, but failed to disclose the information to the Defense Department.

Al-Awlaki was killed in Yemen last year by a U.S. drone strike.

Hasan is awaiting trial and could face the death penalty if convicted.

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The victims and families said the U.S. military knew four years before the Nov. 5, 2009, mass-shooting that the accused killer was a fanatic Islamist extremist who supported jihad, suicide attacks and violence.

The lawsuit attributed the government's alleged inaction to elevating "political correctness" over national security.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. Last year, 83 of the victims and family members filed administrative claims that sought $750 million in compensation from the Army. Neal Sher, an attorney for the victims, said the government has "ignored these claims and under the law we really have been left with no choice" but to sue.

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In a conference call with reporters, former Staff Sgt. Shawn N. Manning, who was shot six times by Hasan, said that the terrorism designation sought by the victims would cover the cost of the medical services that he requires. The designation would mean that the wounds the victims suffered qualify as combat-related, resulting in "a huge difference in benefits," said Manning, who was medically discharged from the military about a month ago.

Manning and Sher spoke during a telephone conference call that linked lawsuit participants from several locations.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Reuters file

U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan in an undated handout photo.

The man charged in the 2009 Fort Hood, Texas, shootings, that killed 13 and wounded more than two dozen has been granted a stay of his court-martial proceedings to appeal a ruling that he must appear in court clean-shaven, Fort Hood announced on Monday.

Former Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan, 42, was clean-shaven when he was serving in the military. Since he has been in jail, he has grown a beard. He has said that as a Muslim shaving his beard now would be a sin, because he believes he is close to death, the Los Angeles Times reported.

If convicted of the Nov. 5, 2009, attack, Hasan faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

Military court requires that defendants be clean-shaven, and the court has found Hasan to be in contempt and fined him $1,000 each time he has appeared in court with the beard.

A military appeals court in Virginia on Thursday upheld a judge’s ruling that Hasan can be forcibly shaved for the court-martial.

But on Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces issued another stay to accommodate an appeal. The court did not say how long the stay would remain in place.

Hasan's court-martial was initially scheduled for August.

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Reuters

U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan, charged with killing 13 people and wounding 31 in a November 2009 shooting spree at Fort Hood, will have to shave his beard, a military court has ruled.

A U.S. military court ruled on Thursday that Fort Hood shooting suspect Major Nidal Hasan must shave his beard before appearing for court martial on murder charges connected to the November, 2009 massacre.

"In front of a military panel, it is undeniable that failure to comply with Army grooming regulations would cast him in a negative light," a majority of judges on the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals ruled. "The military judge has the authority to prescribe the proper uniform for trial."

Hasan, 42, argued that he has a beard because of his Muslim beliefs and requiring him to shave it would amount to religious discrimination.

Hasan faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole if convicted in the Nov. 5, 2009, attack that killed 13 people and wounded more than two dozen others at the Army post about 130 miles southwest of Dallas.

His trial has been on hold for months while the issue of his beard was adjudicated.

Hasan's attorneys also want the appeals court to overturn six contempt-of-court rulings Col. Gregory Gross issued against Hasan for having a beard at pretrial hearings this past summer, when he first showed up in court with facial hair.

Army grooming standards prohibit beards but allow for religious exceptions. Gross denied Hasan's request for such an exception. He found that Hasan's claims of religious sincerity did not outweigh prosecutor's arguments that Hasan grew the beard just before his August trial date so witnesses wouldn't be able to identify him in court.

At an Oct. 11 hearing, defense attorney Capt. Kristin McGrory said military judges have no authority to order forcible shaving. She said military regulations authorize it for inmates only for safety and health reasons.

McGrory also disputed Gross' assertion that the beard would be a disruption during Hasan's trial.

"The fact that he's wearing a beard does not materially interfere with the course of the trial," she told the panel of judges.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this story.

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The Temple Daily Telegram via AP/Bell County Sheriff's Dept.

Nidal Hasan, accused in the Nov. 2009 Fort Hood shootings that killed 13 people, undated.

Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of carrying out the November 2009 shooting spree at Fort Hood in Texas, sought to plead guilty Wednesday to 13 counts of premeditated murder but the judge said he could not accept the plea, the Temple Daily Telegram reported.

Under military law, Hasan is not allowed to plead guilty because the premeditated murder charges carry death as the maximum sentence and the government is pursuing the death penalty in Hasan's case.

The Telegram, providing live updates from the courtroom, reported that military judge Col. Gregory Gross said Hasan wanted to plead guilty to the capital counts. (Gross) "explained he is prohibited from accepting such a plea," according to Telegram reporter Paul Romer.

"The motion apparently indicated Hasan wished to plead guilty to take responsibility for his actions."

"There is no right to plead guilty...The accused could still take responsibility for his actions — Judge Gross."

"Judge Gross said he would enter not guilty pleas in behalf of Hasan, if necessary."

"Hasan apparently claimed not being allowed to plead guilty violated his religious beliefs, which Gross disagreed with."

Military law would allow Hasan to plead guilty to lesser murder charges that do not carry the death penalty, the AP reported. But that scenario was unlikely because efforts to reach a plea deal failed over a year ago, it reported, citing John Galligan, a civilian attorney who represented Hasan before leaving the defense team in 2011.

It's been nearly three years since Hasan allegedly opened fire on personnel at a medical facility on the Texas Army post, leaving 13 dead and 32 wounded.

The trial for Hasan — scheduled to start on Monday — was put on hold because of another dispute in the military court. Hasan has appealed the court's orders to shave his face to comply with military law, saying his beard is a requirement of his Muslim faith, the Associated Press reported.

Related content:

AWOL soldier plotting Fort Hood attack sentenced to life

On Tuesday, Gross also denied a motion by the defense to exclude testimony by Evan Kohlman, a specialist on "homegrown terrorism," who was on the list of prosecution witnesses.

On Wednesday, for the fifth time, the judge started the hearing with a contempt charge against Hasan and fined him $1,000, for showing up unshaven.

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An investigation of the FBI's handling of the events leading up to the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009, concludes that agents made a series of mistakes, failing to follow up on important questions and to share information widely enough.

"We do not find, and we do not suggest, that these mistakes resulted from intentional misconduct or the disregard of duties," concluded William Webster, the FBI's former director who led the investigation. "Indeed, we find that each special agent, intelligence analyst, and task force officer who handled the information acted with good intent."

Click here to read the full report (pdf)

Most of the shortcomings have been previously disclosed, and some resulted from a lack of training and of understanding military nomenclature. For example, agents in San Diego, who were investigating al-Qaida propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, noticed on December 17, 2008, that Nidal Hasan, who would become the Fort Hood shooter, sent al-Awlaki an e-mail asking about soldiers who kill fellow military personnel with the aim of "helping muslims fighting jihad."

Related: Judge delays Fort Hood shooting hearing over Hasan's beard

The San Diego agents decided against sending out a broadly disseminated message that would have alerted the system that a member of the US military was communicating with a known al-Qaida terrorist. The agents noticed that a summary of his military records said Hasan was a "Comm Officer," and they assumed it meant he was a communications officer and might have access to the system that would contain such an alert message. In fact, the abbreviation meant Hasan was a commissioned officer.

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The report also says agents in the FBI's Washington field office failed to follow through more aggressively to the leads developed in San Diego. Part of the problem, the report said, was that the FBI received only glowing accounts from the Department of Defense about Hasan's career. Agents were never told that he was actually considered a poor performer who was often on probation.

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Bell County Sheriffs Department

U.S. Major Nidal Hasan sits at the San Antonio to Bell County Jail in Belton, Texas, after his Nov. 5 shooting spree at Fort Hood on April 9, 2010.

A judge has barred Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged in a deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hood, from military court because he still has a beard.

Judge Col. Gregory Gross told Hasan on Tuesday that he could not attend any more hearings until he shaved, citing the Army’s strict regulations regarding grooming standards. At a hearing earlier this month Gross had initially warned Hasan – who is still a member of the military – that his refusal to shave was in violation of Army policy.

Hasan, 41, faces the death penalty if convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder for the November 2009 attack that killed 13 people in Texas and wounded more than 30 others. It is the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military base.

Lead defense attorney Lt. Col. Kris Poppe said Hasan grew the beard as a “deeply sincere” expression of his Islamic faith and because he has a premonition he will die soon.

For a trial that has already suffered significant delays compared to typical tribunals, military law experts say Hasan’s actions are clearly a means of delaying the Fort Hood court proceedings and maximizing his own media exposure.

“Obviously this stunt is not genuine,” Jeffrey Addicott, a former legal adviser to the Army Special Forces, told msnbc.com. “And if it is genuine, his religion is what motivated him to murder people, so it’s not likely that would go over well for him in the long run anyway.”

Hasan, an American-born Muslim, has been clean-shaven in all other court appearances since the 2009 attack. His current shift in behavior, says Addicott, who’s also the director at the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary’s University, signals that he wants the media attention in hopes to make the case that the military is persecuting him for his faith.

“He’s using this as a platform to proselytize other would-be extremists,” Addicott said. “He wants publicity to advance radical Islam and attract other jihadists to the cause, and to portray that he’s being persecuted by the military because they are making him to shave his beard when that’s his Islamic belief.”

Hasan, who is paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by police the day of the rampage, was removed from the court Tuesday and ordered to watch the rest of the day’s proceedings on a closed-circuit television from a nearby room, which Addicott called particularly troubling for Hasan’s tactic. For his part, Addicott said he predicts Hasan will shave his beard.

“This is not his first stunt, and it will not be his last,” Addicott said. “Hasan thrives on media attention, so now the judge is saying, ‘I’m going to isolate you from the media,’ which won’t go over well with Hasan’s strategy.”

But despite Hasan’s motivations, Greg Rinckey, a former attorney with the U.S. Army’s Judge Advocate General Corps, says he’s not surprised about delays in this case because everyone is proceeding cautiously.

“This case is being watched closely,” Rinckey told msnbc.com. “Everything the judge does is going to be subject to appeal. He doesn’t want people to say he was too harsh or predisposed, and he absolutely doesn’t want the case to get overturned on a technicality.”

Fort Hood officials wouldn’t say whether Hasan would be charged for showing up unshaven, though one possible charge is failure to obey a lawful order or regulation, which carries a maximum two-year jail sentence.

The trial is expected to last at least two months and is currently scheduled to begin August 20. Hasan remains jailed.

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Bell County Sheriffs Department

Nidal Hasan is seen at the Bell County Jail near Fort Hood, Texas, in November.

The judge in the trial of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan delayed pre-trial motions Friday when he ruled the defendant to be in violation of the Army's grooming standards.         

Hasan showed up for the half-day administrative hearing sporting a beard, which military prosecutors said was a violation of Army regulation 670-1 and court-martial rule 804(4)(1). Judge Col. Gregory Gross then went on record saying that Hasan's beard was a disruption to the proceedings.

"It is a disruption. The judge felt it was," Fort Hood media officer Chris Haug told msnbc.com. "He's in violation of the Army's dress and grooming standards," 

Army regulation 670-1 dictates the appearance of Army uniforms, while court-martial rule 804(4)(1) states  the accused shall be attired in dress or uniform as prescribed by a military judge.

"He's an active-duty soldier and should be in full uniform and clean shaven. That's what all active-duty soldiers are supposed to do," Haug said.

It was the first time Hasan has shown up in court with a beard.

According to Army rules, all males must be clean shaven when in uniform or civilian clothes while on duty.

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The defense indicated it would file a request for exception to the policy for religious accommodation for Hasan, an American-born Muslim, to the Department of the Army.There was no indication how long it would take for a decision to be made on such a request. 

The pre-trial motions will resume when Hasan adheres to the Army regulation or when a closed-circuit feed can be set up for him to observe the trial from a different location, the military said. A location has not been determined should the closed-circuit option be needed. 

The motions scheduled for Friday included a request for further continuance, resolution of discovery matters and whether the accused should receive the services of an expert neurologist at government expense. It was unclear when the motions would be addressed.

Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. If convicted, he could face life without parole or the death penalty. 

Eight soldiers and five civilians were killed in the Nov. 5, 2009, attack on the Army base in Texas. Hasan was wounded and paralyzed from the chest down before being captured.

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