KXXV-TV News Channel 25 - Central Texas News and Weather for Waco, Temple, Killeen | Fort Hood shooter's attorney receives death threats

Fort Hood shooter's attorney receives death threats

by Henry Rosoff

BELTON - Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal Malik Hasan's high profile civilian attorney, a retired army judge, has a lot of pressure on him

John Galligan was an army lawyer for 30 years before retiring.  He officially became Hasan's representative Monday.

"I never, ever regretted a decision to support our uniform service members," Galligan said.

However, Galligan told New Channel 25 he never expected the level of publicity that now surrounds him.  More importantly, he was not ready for the death threats that started coming his way in recent days.

"There's people condemning my acceptance of the case," he said.  "[They] passed on language both written and oral, threatening enough that I notified local authorities."

Galligan says he is now more careful about who he meets with at his Belton office, and is more mindful of people coming and going.

But not all the attention is negative.

"I've received emails from associations and defense councils applauding me," Galligan said.  "It's important that we keep our eyes on an objective trial."

Galligan's perspective was also endorsed by President Barack Obama in his speech during the Fort Hood memorial service Tuesday.

"We are a nation of laws whose commitment to justice is so enduring that we would treat a gunman and give him due process, just as surely as we will see that he pays for his crimes," Mr. Obama said.

"My philosophy is: 'They defend us and we need to defend them,'" Galligan said, who will meet with Hasan for the second time Thursday. He said he expects to have a more substantive conversation about the shooting incident than their first meeting Monday.