Articles of Interest: U.S. Senator, Former U.S. Solicitor General and Victim’s Family Member Express Support for 9/​11 Plea Deals

Theodore B. Olson, for­mer U.S. Solicitor General from 2001 to 2004, who lost his wife in the September 11^th ter­ror attacks, says he felt relief upon hear­ing the announce­ment that three of the defen­dants entered into an agree­ment to plead guilty in exchange for removal of the death penal­ty as a sen­tenc­ing option. However, Mr. Olson writes that his relief was short-lived when with­in 48 hours of the announce­ment Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revoked the plea agree­ment. Mr. Olson believes this deci­sion ​“was an error.” He writes that ​“the plea deals were the best pos­si­ble res­o­lu­tion to the tragedy of 9/​11 and should go for­ward.” Per the agree­ment, the three defen­dants would have pled guilty, waived their right to appel­late pro­ceed­ings, and answered ques­tions from 9/​11 victim families. 

At first, Mr. Olson said, he sup­port­ed the mil­i­tary com­mis­sion’s pro­ceed­ings at Guantánamo Bay, but came to real­ize that ​“despite the government’s best inten­tions, we have been mired in seem­ing­ly end­less lit­i­ga­tion, large­ly focused on the treat­ment of detainees and on gov­ern­ment secre­cy.” Mr. Olson acknowl­edges that many 9/​11 vic­tims felt betrayed by the government’s aban­don­ment of the death penal­ty for all three defen­dants. He writes that ​“as both a 9/​11 vic­tim fam­i­ly mem­ber and a lawyer, I have reluc­tant­ly con­clud­ed that the gov­ern­ment has proved itself unable to bring this case to tri­al, secure con­vic­tions and obtain death sen­tences that would sur­vive the inevitable fed­er­al court appeals.” Mr. Olson, in agree­ment with pros­e­cu­tors, says he believes that a plea deal would bring ​“final­i­ty and jus­tice” to all those involved.

Mr. Olson ​“was dis­heart­ened” to hear that Secretary Austin ​“mis­tak­en­ly believed all vic­tims’ fam­i­lies demand­ed com­mis­sion tri­als and moved to with­draw the agree­ments nego­ti­at­ed and signed by his own pros­e­cu­tors.” He urges Secretary Austin to respect the agree­ment reached between pros­e­cu­tors and the accused, so ​“we can begin to close this painful chap­ter in our nation’s his­to­ry.” In a let­ter to Sec. Austin, Senator Dick Durbin expressed sim­i­lar frus­tra­tions, writ­ing that he is ​“trou­bled by [Sec. Austin’s] deci­sion to revoke the guilty pleas that, in the rea­soned judg­ment of the pros­e­cu­tors of the case, were the best path for­ward to final­i­ty and jus­tice.” Sen. Durbin also urges Sec. Austin to ​“assess whether pro­ceed­ings with the failed and bro­ken com­mis­sions can real­is­ti­cal­ly pro­vide the fam­i­lies with a bet­ter out­come that pleas.”