The last time that the U.S. military executed a service member
The family of the Austrian girl whom Army Pvt. John Arthur Bennett raped in 1954 did not support his execution.
The parents of Gertie, who was 11 years old at the time of the assault, wrote to the White House after the administration reached out to them. They replied, saying they did not favor putting Bennett to death. So did Gertie.
“I consent to a commutation of the sentence since even his execution could not eradicate what has happened,” the then-17-year-old wrote. “But in the event the convicted should ever be released from prison, I request that as long as he lives[,] he never be permitted to return to Europe again.”
A week after those telegrams arrived from overseas, the Army put Bennett to death by hanging April 13, 1961, at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. It was the last time the U.S. military has executed a service member for his crimes.
That could change soon with Nidal Hasan scheduled to face a firing squad December 3. Hasan, a former Army major and psychiatrist, killed 12 soldiers and one civilian in a mass shooting November 5, 2009, at Fort Hood in Texas. He wounded 32 other people.
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the military’s plans to livestream Hasan’s execution. The backlash was so intense that a week later, President Donald Trump scrapped that idea. If they wish, family members will be permitted to watch when Hasan’s sentence is carried out at Fort Hood.
A Quick Court-Martial
The cases involving Bennett and Hasan vary widely.
While one occurred in Europe, the other happened in the United States. One involved unspeakable carnage that involved multiple deaths; in Bennett’s case, the victim was traumatized but survived. Whereas U.S. military executions are extremely rare, they were more common in the 1950s and 1960s, and DNA testing didn’t even exist at the time of Bennett’s crime.
Journalist Richard A. Serrano covered the details of Bennett’s case extensively in a Los Angeles Times Magazine article in 2000. Serrano detailed how Bennett, a seventh-grade dropout who was an ammunition handler and truck driver in the military, had no criminal record until the night Gertie went Christmas shopping in 1954. After the assault, Gertie appeared at the home of an Army sergeant. His wife answered the door, and Gertie—frantic and disheveled—told her a Black person attacked her.
When authorities took Bennett into custody, he insisted they had consensual sex. Bennett faced charges of rape and attempted murder in Austria early the following year. While Gertie pointed out Bennett as her rapist at the court proceeding, Bennett declined to take the stand in his own defense.
It took the jury only 25 minutes to arrive at a verdict. Bennett was guilty.
Was Bennett Mentally Ill?
Bennett’s defense, perhaps inexplicably, did not bring up any of their client’s troubled history. As a youth, Bennett sometimes heard voices while asleep and attempted to follow them, Serrano wrote. He was prone to dizzy spells, lightheadedness, and headaches. He began exhibiting symptoms of epilepsy when he was a young boy.
Furthermore, Serrano described Bennett as “handsome but unambitious, addicted early to whiskey and sex.” One of Bennett’s grandfather and great-uncle drank, and both spent time in mental institutions.
The Army actually performed a mental health evaluation on Bennett when he entered the service and revealed it found no evidence of disease. The jury never got the chance to learn about Bennett’s background, because his defense team didn’t reveal any of those details. More evaluations followed the verdict, with Bennett claiming then that someone else raped Gertie and that he still suffered from seizures.
In February 1956, a team of military mental-health examiners recommended Bennett not face the death penalty. “I do not feel that death is a suitable method for the disposition of a person who is mentally ill,” one Army psychiatrist contended. Several months later, the U.S. Court of Appeals refused to alter Bennett’s sentence.
“Seldom if ever have we been faced with a record which revealed a more vicious offense, or an accused who had less to entitle him to any consideration,” the appellate court ruled.
As Bennett’s legal team raced to save his life, the condemned soldier’s supporters appealed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Serrano wrote. They included his mother, family friends, and Austrian citizens, the journalist outlined. Even Capt. William Fuller, Bennett’s commander, advocated for a reduced sentence.
“Private Bennett is neither inherently criminal in instincts nor vicious by nature,” Fuller argued on the soldier’s behalf. “I believe his crime was unpremeditated and directly traceable to immature mentality and alcohol-inflamed passion.”
“If the Girl Was Not Killed, Neither Should I Be”
Unswayed, Eisenhower signed Bennett’s death warrant July 2, 1957. The execution was set for August 29, roughly eight weeks later. Running out of time, Bennett wrote to Eisenhower himself.
“I cannot understand why the court sentenced me to death,” Bennett implored. “After all[,] even the Old Testament only says, ‘An eye for an eye.’ So even if I had been the one who did rape her, if the girl was not killed, neither should I be.”
The legal maneuvers of Bennett’s case went on for so long that they forced the postponement of his original execution date. So was his second one, on March 10, 1960. In fact, Bennett was still alive when Eisenhower completed his second term in the White House.
Bennett’s final hope likely was a commutation from Eisenhower’s successor, President John F. Kennedy. The new administration wrestled with the decision, Serrano chronicled. They considered not only the details of the case, but also the fact that Bennett was Black. It was impossible to remove racism from their analysis, some in the administration reasoned. Serrano noted that since the time of Bennett’s crime until then, the U.S. military executed eight other soldiers. All were Black. Six white soldiers faced similar sentences during that time, but they were not executed, according to Serrano.
The Kennedy White House valued the opinions of Gertie’s family. The Army sent a captain to ask them whether they supported Bennett’s death sentence. None did. Still, Kennedy—preoccupied with other affairs at the time, including the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba—did not stop the execution.
On April 8—five days before his third and final execution date—Bennett received a letter from the White House, informing him of its decision.
Who’s on Military Death Row Now?
Bennett didn’t have much to celebrate April 10, 1961, which was his 25th birthday. The guards at Fort Leavenworth presented him with a birthday cake anyway, Serrano reported. Several hours before his execution, Bennett sat down for his final meal, which consisted of shrimp with cocktail sauce, hot rolls, cake, peaches, milk, and coffee.
Shortly after midnight on April 13, the Army carried out Bennett’s sentence.
Bennett became the 135th soldier that the U.S. military has executed since 1916. Hasan would be the 136th. Besides Hasan, three other former soldiers are currently on the military’s death row.
Those condemned service members include Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar, whose attack at Camp Pennsylvania, Kuwait, on March 23, 2003, killed two officers and wounded 14 others. The others are murderer and rapist Timothy Hennis and Ronald Gray.
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