As Idaho’s most famous defense lawyer, David Nevin is no stranger to unpopular causes. But his decision to defend the man the government says planned the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, puts him in a league of his own.

“In terms of sheer numbers of people killed, wounded and traumatized and the added terror element, nothing compares to 9/11 in the annals of history,” said former U.S. Attorney for Idaho Betty Richardson.

Nevin and his partner, Scott McKay, have volunteered to help military lawyers represent Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the most important detainee of 300 suspects held at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. His defense is the top priority of the ACLU’s John Adams Project, which is raising money and finding lawyers to help represent the detainees.

“Taking on this client has got to be the greatest challenge any lawyer has ever faced,” said Ellison Matthews, a Boise attorney who worked with Nevin in the 1993 Ruby Ridge trial.

One case comes close: The Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people on April 19, 1995.

“The publicity given to it, the money spent, the notoriety, the infamy of the client — all of those things are comparable,” said Stephen Jones, the Enid, Okla., lawyer who led the defense of Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted of setting off the truck bomb that destroyed the federal courthouse in Oklahoma City. McVeigh was executed three months before 9/11.

Jones said the 9/11 case will take a toll on the lawyers’ personal lives, subject them to media distractions and public condemnation, damage their law practices and perhaps threaten their security. The case will be extraordinarily difficult, he said, because of intense pressure for a conviction, a mountain of evidence, reluctant witnesses and a manipulative and secretive government that denies access to evidence on grounds of national security.

“They’ll just be overwhelmed,” said Jones.

Jones said it took him five years to rebuild his practice following the 1997 McVeigh trial; he now is recovering from heart bypass surgery. “This will take a number of years off their lives and increase their blood pressure, I’ll tell you that,” he said.

Jones has been following the case and is impressed by the Boise lawyers. “I admire them for taking this on. They won’t be the same afterwards. They will learn a lot of things they didn’t know existed — about themselves, about the country, about the world.”

Nevin: ‘A defense for everyone’

Until now, Nevin had declined comment. But he agreed to talk to the Statesman about one thing: His motive for agreeing to defend Mohammed.

Now in Detroit trying a case with celebrity lawyer and Ruby Ridge co-counsel Gerry Spence, Nevin said he’s obligated to defend constitutional principles, including the presumption of innocence for those accused of the most horrific of crimes. “You can’t have a justice system that is really fair and works unless you’re willing to provide a defense for everyone,” he said.

“I don’t know what the government can prove about what Khalid Sheik Mohammed did or did not do. I’ve heard the rumors; I’ve seen the newspaper stories. But that’s different. You cannot say that if the government makes really, really bad allegations against someone, then no one should step forward. That leads to a justice system that really doesn’t work when it needs to work.”

McKay declined to comment. But Matthews, who knows both men well, said, “He’s brilliant. I think he feels the same way that David does.”