WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court won’t weigh in on a controversial plea agreement for the man accused of masterminding the 9/11 attacks, leaving a long-delayed military trial as the way to potentially resolve a case a quarter century after the deadly acts of terrorism.
The court on Oct. 19 rejected an appeal from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and alleged al Qaeda accomplices who want to plead guilty under an agreement that would have spared them the death penalty.
The agreement had been accepted by an official overseeing the Pentagon's Guantanamo war tribunal as way to bring closure to the long-running case. But within days, it was revoked by President Joe Biden’s defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, after criticism from Republican lawmakers.
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The military courts said Austin had no legal ability to do that.
A federal appeals court disagreed, using a rare legal authority to back Austin that Mohammed’s lawyers said was improper.
They told the Supreme Court that because the case is of such high national importance, the justices should have the final word on whether the plea agreement can stand.
Although the court declined to intervene, the government still faces another obstacle to completing the prosecution.
In August, a military judge threw out Mohammed’s confession to FBI agents, ruling it wasn’t given voluntarily and can’t be used against him at trial.
Mohammed, a Pakistani engineer who went to college in the United States, was subjected to waterboarding and other interrogation measures in secret CIA prisons before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.
Prosecutors already had agreed to exclude statements Mohammed made during his time in CIA custody. But they had hoped his admissions of guilt to a “clean team” of FBI agents would be admissible.
The judge’s decision strips prosecutors of what they have said is the centerpiece of their prosecution of Mohammed.
For the past 14 years, the military commission proceedings have been delayed repeatedly by disputes over the defendants' treatment in CIA custody and the admissibility of evidence gathered against them.
Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization founded by family members of 9/11 victims, had urged the Supreme Court to put the plea agreement back in place.
The lower court’s ruling means there will be “indefinite further delay in seeing this long and painful prosecution brought to a close,” the group told the justices in a filing.
“If left to stand, the decision raises the possibility that the prosecution of those responsible for the mass murder of thousands of people on U.S. soil will never be concluded,” the group said. “Never.”
The Justice Department told the court that the family members of victims are divided over whether the government should continue to seek the death penalty. Because that decision “implicates the interests of the entire nation,” the government said, it should be made by an official – like the defense secretary − who is politically accountable to the public.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court won't revive 9/11 plea deal to end long-delayed prosecution
