Answer: because Gen. Casey and the whole PC PWd Army chain of command are sweating bullets over what a GCM will reveal about PC in the military, and a massacre that could have been prevented."
No, he hasn't been tried yet because his defense counsel, Mr. Galligan, keeps requesting continuances and, unless the Army wants any conviction/sentence overturned on appeal, these continuance requests will be allowed to continue for some time.
Basically, the Manual for Courts-Martial almost requires that the Convening Authority and the military judge to grant continuances requested by the defense for which the defense counsel claims that the defense of the accused in a court-martial would be jeopardized without the continuance.
I'll grant you that I haven't seen many courts-martial that have the potential for delays as this one does, but, a lot of times, even the most basic court-martial can be delayed for months due to sanity board requests, witness and evidence examination difficulties or discovery, and other such matters. We often have courts-martial where the charges are months old before we get to trial.
That being said, Mr. Galligan is one of the most anti-military, ambulance-chasing, camera-hogging ex-military lawyers in the Central Texas area and is probably trying to extend the duration of this court for three major reasons: one, to screw with the military; two, to get as much money as he can get from the accused and his family/supporters before the money well dries up; and, three, to get as much publicity for J.P. Galligan as the market will bear.
So when are they going to build a Mosque at Ft. Hood? I wouldn’t be suprised if Obama didn’t require all military bases to have Mosques.
An excellent summary of the reasons for delaying trial by court-martial of Nidal Malik Hasan (I refuse to refer to him by rank. He is a Muslim first and everything else second).
Galligan is a renegade from the Army JAG Corps. If I were Fort Hood post commander I would allow him onto the reservation only under armed guard everywhere he went, including the latrine.