Supreme Court Won't Revive the 9/11 Plea Deals. Now Get Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to Trial.

The Supreme Court on Monday turned away Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and two alleged accomplices, who were trying to revive plea deals that would have spared them the death penalty.

The facts come first below. My opinion follows in the section marked as opinion.

What the court did

In an unsigned order, the justices declined to hear appeals from Mohammed, Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash, CBS News reported. That leaves in place a lower-court decision that the government validly withdrew the deals. Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not take part.

The ruling removes one barrier to Mohammed standing trial before a military commission in 2028, where the death penalty is possible, NBC News reported. He has been held at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006. A fourth man set for trial, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, was not part of the appeal.

How the deals were made and undone

The men were captured in 2003 and formally charged in 2008, CBS reported. They are charged with several crimes, five of which carry the death penalty. Their cases have been stuck for years in fights over whether evidence obtained during interrogations could be used. Before arriving at Guantanamo, they were held in secret CIA prisons and subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques," or torture.

In 2024, military prosecutors reached agreements under which the men would plead guilty to all charges and serve life sentences instead of facing execution. The deals were approved by retired Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, who oversees the military court at Guantanamo.

Shortly after the deals were announced, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who served under President Joe Biden, revoked them. A military judge ruled in November 2024 that Austin's move was unlawful, and a military appeals court agreed the deals stood. The Justice Department then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which ruled that the defense secretary "indisputably" had the authority to withdraw. "The Secretary acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment," the panel wrote, according to CBS.

The attacks killed 2,977 people from 90 nations: 2,753 in New York, 184 at the Pentagon and 40 on Flight 93, according to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

Opinion: Justice delayed, but not abandoned

This is one of those rare moments when a Biden administration decision and conservative instincts point the same way. Austin was right to pull back deals that would have let the accused planners of an attack that killed 2,977 people avoid the ultimate penalty without a trial. The courts have now said he had the authority to do it.

Scripture does not treat the shedding of innocent blood lightly. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed" (Genesis 9:6). Paul wrote that the governing authority "beareth not the sword in vain" and is "a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil" (Romans 13:4). A just government owes the families of 2,977 victims a real reckoning, in open court.

But honesty requires saying the rest. These men were captured in 2003. If the trial begins in 2028, it will be a quarter century after their capture and nearly 27 years after the attacks. Part of the reason is the government's own choice to torture prisoners, which has tangled the evidence ever since. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" (Ecclesiastes 8:11).

America can be tough and still be careful. Dock Line made the same point about another high-profile defendant when Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty to U.S. torture charges: justice should be done, and done right. The 9/11 case deserves both. The Supreme Court cleared one obstacle Monday. Now the government needs to get to trial, and stop letting this case drift.