The Supreme Court on Monday handed the Trump administration a victory in the long-running Sept. 11 prosecution, turning away appeals from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other accused plotters who wanted to restore plea agreements that would have spared them the death penalty.
In an unsigned order, the justices declined to hear the cases of Mohammed, Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Walid bin 'Atash, who had asked them to overturn a federal appeals court decision that kept a military judge from enforcing the deals. Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not take part. The denial means the 2024 withdrawal of the agreements by then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stands.
The administration continued to defend Austin's decision after taking office, even though Austin served under former President Joe Biden. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed the government's briefs urging the court to deny review in Mohammed's case and in bin 'Atash's on Aug. 26. The defendants, in separate petitions, had argued that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overstepped its authority when it sided with the government.
The agreements were reached in 2024 and approved by retired Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, the convening authority who oversees the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay. Under their terms, the three men would have pleaded guilty to every charge and served life sentences, avoiding the death penalty, and would have had to answer questions from victims' relatives and survivors at a public sentencing hearing. Austin revoked the deals shortly after they were announced, asserting that a decision of such significance "should rest with me."
The military courts first sided with the defendants. A military judge ruled in November 2024 that Austin's nullification was unlawful and the agreements valid and enforceable, and a military appeals court then held that he could not rescind them because the defendants had already begun performing one of their terms, CBS News reported. The Justice Department took the dispute to the D.C. Circuit, which ruled on July 11, 2025, that the secretary "indisputably" had the power to withdraw. "The Secretary acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment," the panel wrote. The appeals court denied rehearing on Jan. 6.
The three men were captured in 2003 and held at secret CIA prisons, where they were tortured under what the agency called enhanced interrogation techniques, before being moved to Guantanamo in 2006 and formally charged in 2008. Five of the charges they face carry the death penalty. Their prosecutions have been stalled for years as successive administrations wrestled with how to handle that treatment and whether evidence obtained through torture could be used in court.
Monday's order does little to speed a trial, according to Stephen Vladeck, a Georgetown University law professor and CNN legal analyst who filed a brief urging the justices to take the appeals. He said the denials clear the way for the "inexorable" pretrial proceedings to continue and called even the current summer 2028 trial date "entirely unrealistic given how many issues remain to be resolved."
The agreements had drawn a backlash from some groups representing victims' families. With Monday's order, the case returns to the military courts, which have struggled for years to bring it to trial.