Washington– There’s a federal judge Temporarily blocked The Trump administration decided to transfer 20 inmates on reduced death sentences to the nation’s maximum security federal prison.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ruled late Wednesday that the government cannot send former death row inmates to the federal “supermax” prison in Florence, Colorado, because that would likely violate their Fifth Amendment rights to due process.
Kelly cited evidence that officials from the Republican administration “made clear” to the federal Bureau of Prisons that prisoners should be sent to ADX Florence — the “administrative maximum” — to be punished because Democratic President Joe Biden commuted their death sentences.
“At least for now, they will remain in prison for life for their heinous crimes where they currently remain in prison,” wrote Kelly, who was nominated for the judgeship by President Donald Trump.
And in December 2024, less than a month before Trump returns to the White House, Biden The sentences of 37 of the 40 people were reduced Those on federal death row have their sentences converted to life imprisonment.
On his first day back in office, Trump issued an executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to house the 37 inmates “in conditions consistent with the brutality of their crimes and the threats they pose.”
Twenty of the 37 inmates are plaintiffs in the lawsuit before Kelly, who issued a preliminary injunction blocking their transfer to Florence while the lawsuit is pending. All of them were imprisoned in Terre Haute, Indiana, when Biden commuted their death sentences.
Government lawyers have argued that the office has broad authority to decide which facilities prisoners should be reassigned to after their sentences are commuted.
The judge concluded that the inmates had no meaningful opportunity to appeal their reassignment because the outcome of the review process appeared to have been predetermined.
“But the Constitution requires that when the government seeks to deprive someone of a liberty or property interest protected by the Due Process Clause — whether that person is a notorious prisoner or a law-abiding citizen — the process it provides cannot be a sham,” Kelly wrote.
The Florence prison holds some of the most notorious criminals in federal custody, including Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys say inmates there live alone, eating their meals and showering in cells roughly the size of a parking lot.
Government lawyers said other courts had held that the conditions were not objectively cruel and unusual.