Violent repeat offenders all too often repeat their violence right after judges free them. It’s in their job description. In February, a New York City judge released Rudell Faulkner despite 47 prior arrests and 27 convictions in which he preyed on New Yorkers. It was the sixth time in 2024 that Faulkner had been arrested and released without bail, and it was less than two months into the year. Cops had stopped Faulkner after he jumped a subway turnstile only then to discover narcotics in his possession. Authorities also charged Faulkner with grand larceny against a 56-year-old woman in connection with that arrest. 

Stories like Faulkner’s abound but no longer astound. His incorrigible recidivism and the legal system’s reluctance to protect the innocent from his predations deserve our utmost scorn. Unfortunately, our legal system’s refusal to mete out fitting punishment for even the most vile criminals reached a far more despicable low this summer.

On July 31, retired Brigadier General Susan K. Escallier signed a plea deal with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), one of the 9/11 attacks’ surviving masterminds, and two other defendants. Escallier’s sweetheart agreement took the death penalty off the table for the three most prolific mass murderers in U.S. custody. Americans will never forget their heinous crimes. It appears, however, that Brigadier General Escallier already did, assuming she ever worried about them in the first place.

The 9/11 attackers murdered 2,976 innocent civilians, including 343 New York City firemen, 37 Port Authority police officers, and 23 New York City police officers, all of whom dutifully responded to their neighbors’ fateful calls for help. Three times as many men died in the attacks as did women. Assuming an 80-year-life expectancy, the hardest hit age group, 35-39, lost roughly 45 years of life each. The 9/11 attackers therefore snuffed out approximately 133,920 human life years. They deprived 3,051 children of a parent, 1,609 of a spouse or partner, and 1,717 families never received their loved ones’ remains. But Brigadier General Susan K. Escallier wanted to make damn sure Khalid Sheikh Mohammed received his unconscionable plea deal while those families must visit empty graves to this very day.

Retired Brigadier General Susan K. Escallier’s retirement didn’t come soon enough for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. On Aug. 3, Secretary Austin overruled Escallier’s gratuitous offer declaring, “Responsibility for such a decision should rest with me.” The fatherless children of 9/11, the saddened widows, and broken families cheered Austin’s just decision. One surviving wife, Terry Strada, understood the long-term, strategic importance of Austin’s move better than the secretary himself. As long as KSM and his co-conspirators fester at Guantanamo, incoming presidential administrations might “commute their sentences or swap them in the future,” Strada warned.

The death penalty serves more than one purpose in this case. Summary execution would be the most condign punishment for KSM and his two co-defendants. The Biden administration’s opportunistic December 2022 hostage swap proved Strada’s point. Bowing to public pressure, Biden traded Victor Bout, convicted of conspiring to kill Americans and aiding a terrorist organization, for American basketball player Britney Griner. Terrorists will now regard the KSM trio in U.S. custody as their Holy Grail and take Americans hostage worldwide to demand their insulting release.

Terry Strada speaks with a broken heart but a solid brain. By contrast, Tennessee’s obtunded senator, Mitch McConnell, unfroze barely long enough to sputter some Republican talking points, carefully crafted not to offend KSM’s Saudi sponsors or the irrelevant Muslim electoral bloc, which cast just 6 percent of its votes for Donald Trump in 2020. McConnell boiler-plated the contemptuous plea deal as “a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice.” He should reread that comment at future senatorial debates over the continued funding of our senseless wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Senator Tom Cotton piled on to introduce legislation to nullify the agreement.

The left’s reaction to the proposed plea defied reason, as most emanations from the left do nowadays. Illinois’ Democrat senator Dick Durbin praised the deal as “a small measure of justice and finality to the victims and their loved ones.” Lucky for Durbin, few if any surviving 9/11 widows and orphans live in his state. KSM’s lawyer, Gary Sowards, complained that “the government still has not learned the lessons of this case” since it ignored “due process and fair play,” two legal niceties his client also ignored when he murdered 3,000 Americans.

While in custody at Guantanamo, KSM bragged “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl.” KSM’s execution would barely rebalance the scales of justice. Now his lawyers have challenged the government’s evidence in the case, claiming it was tainted by waterboarding. The cowardly Brigadier General Escallier caved to their complaint and then offered an unjust plea deal as atonement. It’s not a surprise when a society that recoils from punishing violent repeat offenders later refuses to execute mass murderers.