By: Chris Cheng
FORT HOOD – Accused Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, will be forced to enter a plea at an emergency hearing, Wednesday, on Fort Hood.
Trial judge Colonel Gregory Gross told the defense he would not wait the requested two days for Hasan to make up his mind.
The Army major is facing 13 counts of premeditated murder as well as
32 counts of attempted premeditated murder.
Tuesday's pre-trial hearing began like most with Hasan being held in contempt and fined $1,000.
The judge had the accused Fort Hood shooter immediately removed from the courtroom and proceedings continued.
Many of the pending motions from the last hearing were addressed, Tuesday.
Judge Gross ruled that the government would be allowed to have their expert witness in home grown terrorism, Evan Kohlmann, to testify during the trial.
The judge then heard further arguments from both sides on a possible continuance until October 9th.
Hasan's attorney's argued that they needed more time to prepare for such a complex and unique case.
The defense said at the last hearing they still needed to look over 8,000 pages of jail and medical records as well as question 20 new witnesses.
Judge Gross denied their request and noted that the trial would begin, as scheduled, on Monday, August 20th.
From there, Gross laid out his plans for jury selection on Monday.
The pool will be split into groups of six, for each day, and both sides would be able to cross examine three in the morning and the remaining after the lunch break.
Gross then heard a number of other motions by the defense that included prosecutorial misconduct, adjustment to the trial process, as well as a request for daily transcripts during jury selection -- all were denied.
The pre-trial hearing took dramatic turn when Gross notified the defense that he would be scheduling a last minute hearing for Wednesday.
Hasan's attorney's argued that the he wanted to discuss his decision with "his closest living relative", who could not be in town until Thursday.
Gross countered by saying Hasan has had over a year to mull over his decision.
A final pre-trial hearing was scheduled for Friday.
