The Supreme Court on Monday turned away appeals from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants who tried to revive plea agreements later withdrawn by the Pentagon. The government’s withdrawal of those deals remains in place.
CBS News reported that the high court acted through an unsigned order in the long-running military commission fight over the September 11 attacks. Mohammed, Mustafa al Hawsawi, and Walid bin 'Atash had asked the justices to reinstate bargains that would have swapped guilty pleas for life sentences and taken death off the table.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not take part in the court’s consideration of the appeal. With the bid rejected, the path back toward a capital trial at Guantanamo Bay stays open, and the procedural war over who controls plea deals in terrorism cases is settled for now in the government’s favor.
Military prosecutors reached pretrial agreements with the three men in 2024. Retired Brigadier General Susan Escallier, the convening authority who oversees the military court at Guantanamo Bay, approved them after her 2023 appointment. Under the terms, the defendants would plead guilty to all charges and serve life sentences while avoiding the death penalty.
Then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin moved quickly. Shortly after the agreements were announced, he revoked them. The Biden administration’s withdrawal set off a chain of rulings inside the military system and in federal court.
In November 2024, the military judge overseeing the cases ruled that Austin’s nullification was unlawful and that the agreements remained valid and enforceable. A military appeals court later said Austin could not rescind the deals because the defendants had begun to perform one of the terms.
The Justice Department then asked the D.C. Circuit to step in and hold that Austin validly withdrew from the pretrial agreements. Last year, the D.C. Circuit sided with the government. The panel ruled that the defense secretary “indisputably” had authority to pull out of the deals.
The appellate court put the point in plain terms.
"The Secretary acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment,"
Monday’s Supreme Court order left that result undisturbed. The withdrawal stands.
Mohammed is the accused September 11 mastermind before the military commission. He, Hawsawi, and bin 'Atash face charges tied to alleged roles in crafting and carrying out the attacks. Five of the charged crimes carry the death penalty.
Authorities captured the three men in 2003. They were held at secret CIA prisons and subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques,” then moved to Guantanamo Bay in 2006 and formally charged in 2008. The cases have crawled forward for years amid fights over interrogation-derived evidence.
In August, the military judge set a trial date of June 2028, dependent on the parties meeting deadlines and milestones on time. Fox News reports the schedule more precisely as June 5, 2028, nearly 27 years after the attacks, and notes a separate fifth defendant handled apart from the main group as mentally incompetent. Defendants were arraigned in 2012 after the 2006 transfer to Guantanamo.
Fox News also reported that a military judge barred use of Mohammed’s 2007 FBI statements as tainted by prior CIA coercive treatment, and that the government did not appeal that ruling in order to protect the trial date. Evidence fights of that kind have repeatedly slowed the commission.
For relatives of those killed, the calendar is not an abstraction. Nearly 3,000 people died in the September 11 attacks carried out by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists. The absence of a finished trial has left an open wound across anniversary after anniversary.
John Ryan, a former Port Authority Police chief and Ground Zero recovery worker, described the toll in stark language.
"It’s like an open sore, and that sore gets even more hurtful when we get to anniversaries,"
Sean Passananti, whose father died in the North Tower, framed the delay as a fight that should never have been necessary.
"It feels really like a twilight zone and unbelievable that we have to fight for justice for the worst terrorist attack that ever happened on our soil,"
Those voices land against a docket that has already consumed two decades of custody, motion practice, judge changes, and collapsed plea talks without a verdict on the alleged plotters’ guilt.
Because the plea deals are gone and the Supreme Court will not revive them, capital exposure remains live before a military jury of U.S. service members. Just The News reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has stated a clear intent to keep seeking the ultimate penalty for Mohammed and the other 9/11 co-conspirators held at Guantanamo.
Hegseth put that commitment in direct terms.
"I am committed to seeking the death penalty for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and for every 9/11 co-conspirator locked up at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp"
Just The News also notes the broader stall: 24 years after the attacks, the alleged al-Qaeda plotters still have not faced trial, with confession admissibility fights tied to CIA custody continuing to drive delay. Mohammed has long been described as the principal architect of the plot and has claimed responsibility “from A to Z,” claims that sit inside a commission process still sorting what a military jury may hear.
The Supreme Court did not write a full opinion explaining its refusal to hear the case. It simply turned the appeals away and left the D.C. Circuit’s holding in force. That holding backed the defense secretary’s power to withdraw from pretrial agreements in this setting and refused to second-guess the judgment Austin made when he revoked the 2024 bargains.
Investigators and prosecutors still must meet the milestones tied to the June 2028 trial setting. Courts have not publicly cured every dispute over statements taken after CIA detention. The military judge’s earlier finding that Austin’s nullification was unlawful is now subordinated to the appellate conclusion that the secretary had authority to withdraw. No public Supreme Court order text beyond the unsigned turn-away was detailed in the account of Monday’s action.
What remains is a capital military commission case against the accused September 11 organizers, without the life-plea off-ramp those defendants tried to lock in. Escallier’s approval of the deals, Austin’s revocation, the military judge’s November 2024 ruling, the military appeals court’s performance-of-terms theory, the Justice Department’s trip to the D.C. Circuit, and the Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene now form the controlling sequence.
Accountability for mass murder on American soil still runs through a courtroom at Guantanamo. Plea bargains that would have taken death off the table are gone, and the institutions charged with trying the case no longer have a high-court obstacle to that withdrawal. Justice delayed is not justice denied only if the system finally finishes the job.
