The Supreme Court declined to revive plea deals that would have spared alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants the death penalty, sending the case back to military courts.
CNN reported that the justices on Monday refused to review former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s cancellation of those agreements, leaving in place a lower-court ruling that he had the power to throw them out.
That outcome keeps the death penalty on the table for three men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001, attacks. It also returns a long-stalled prosecution to military courts that have struggled for years to move toward trial.
The defendants are Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Mustafa al Hawsawi, and Walid Bin ‘Attash. They had challenged the D.C. Circuit’s decision siding with the government. The high court denied their appeals.
In 2024, after more than two years of negotiation, pretrial agreements were announced for the three men. The deals required guilty pleas to all charges and a public sentencing hearing where family members and survivors could ask questions.
They also removed the death penalty as an option. That choice drew backlash from some groups representing 9/11 victims and their families, people who have waited decades for a full accounting.
Austin, who served under former President Joe Biden, later revoked the agreements. He said a decision of that weight “should rest with me.”
"should rest with me."
A military judge overseeing the cases ruled in 2024 that the plea agreements were “valid and enforceable.” Weeks later, a military appeals court ruled against Austin. The civilian appeals court then found he “indisputably” had authority to cancel the deals.
Readers who track major Court fights have seen this pattern before, including when the Supreme Court handed Trump a needed win on a separate dispute. Here the justices simply declined to reopen the plea-deal fight.
By leaving the D.C. Circuit ruling alone, the Court cleared the path for pretrial work to continue under military jurisdiction. The Trump administration has continued to defend Austin’s decision to revoke the deals.
These prosecutions have dragged on through multiple presidential administrations. A central problem has been how to handle evidence tied to the torture of detainees in CIA prisons, and whether that evidence can be used in court.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh recused himself from consideration of the appeals. The remaining justices left the lower court’s holding undisturbed.
That posture fits a broader stretch of high-court action in which the bench has repeatedly shaped national fights, much as it did when the Supreme Court again blocked Democrats in an FCC campaign-rate dispute.
Steve Vladeck, a CNN legal analyst and Georgetown law professor who filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the justices to take the case, described what the denials mean in practice.
"The practical effect of today’s denials of certiorari is to clear the way for the inexorable pre-trial proceedings in these cases to continue,"
He added a blunt assessment of the calendar the parties still face.
"It would be one thing if a trial were reasonably likely in the near future, but even the current summer 2028 trial date is entirely unrealistic given how many issues remain to be resolved."
Those remaining issues keep survivors and families in limbo. The accused argued that the D.C. Circuit overstepped by backing the government. The Supreme Court did not accept that invitation to intervene.
With the high court out of the way, the case sits again with the military system that has struggled to set a firm trial date. Pretrial proceedings can move forward without the plea deals that would have locked in life sentences and closed the door on capital punishment.
For victims’ families who opposed removing the death penalty, the result preserves the full range of penalties the law allows for mass murder. For the defendants, it means the agreements they once secured no longer shield them from a capital case.
Court-watchers following terrorism-related dockets may also note the justices’ separate interest in how terror ties affect other legal claims, including a matter on whether cooking for terrorists can block asylum.
The procedural path here was straightforward. A military judge first treated the deals as binding. A military appeals court then ruled against Austin. The D.C. Circuit later held that the defense secretary had clear authority to cancel the agreements. The Supreme Court left that holding in place.
Political battles over the Court’s size and power continue in other arenas, including proposals such as when Kamala Harris backed Supreme Court expansion. This denial of review did not turn on that debate. It turned on whether the justices would second-guess a completed cancellation of plea deals in the 9/11 conspiracy cases.
They would not. The appeals failed. The military process resumes with the death penalty still available.
Readers who follow sudden shifts on the bench have seen drama elsewhere, including coverage of a Supreme Court justice flip that grabbed headlines. Monday’s action was quieter: a refusal to hear the case, and a return of the file to the tribunals already assigned to it.
Nearly a quarter-century after the attacks, the men accused of helping plan them still have not faced a completed trial. The cancelled deals would have traded capital exposure for guilty pleas and a staged sentencing hearing. Austin pulled those deals back. The courts above him, ending with the Supreme Court, left that choice standing.
Accountability for September 11 should not be bargained down to spare the accused the hardest penalty the law allows, and this ruling keeps that principle intact for the families still waiting.
