Judge halts Trump’s transfer of ex-death row inmates to ‘Supermax’ prison

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from transferring 20 former death row inmates to Colorado’s “supermax” federal prison, ruling the move likely violated their due process rights under the Fifth Amendment.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly’s 35-page ruling highlights a conflict between executive power and prisoners’ procedural rights.

Under the “prudence” clause of Article II, the president is responsible for executing federal law, and the Bureau of Prisons – overseen by the attorney general – has broad discretion in determining where inmates serve their sentences.

But Kelly said the administration cannot transfer detainees without first giving them a meaningful opportunity to challenge the decision.

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Kelly, a Trump appointee, stressed that his decision had no bearing on the nature of the crimes committed by former death row inmates, many of whom he said were convicted of “some of the most horrific crimes imaginable.”

“The placement of a life-sentenced inmate at ADX Florence does not raise any constitutional concerns as long as the inmate receives adequate due process,” he said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks alongside President Donald Trump on recent Supreme Court decisions in the White House briefing room. (Getty Images)

Instead, the decision focused narrowly on whether the inmates had a real opportunity to challenge the transfer, and Kelly said that was not the case. The order is a temporary blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to counter former President Joe Biden’s sweeping clemency measures during his final month in office, moves that critics described as a political “Hail Mary” that did not receive proper scrutiny.

“The Constitution requires that whenever the government seeks to deprive a person of a liberty or property right 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 said.

The next steps in the case were not immediately clear, and the Justice Department declined to respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on whether it would appeal the decision.

The effort comes as Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Trump administration have sought to reverse Biden’s sweeping clemency measures, including the commutation of 37 death row inmates, many of whom were convicted of particularly heinous and violent crimes.

An individual was convicted of murdering a married couple camping in the Ouachita National Forest in July 2003.

Another was convicted of kidnapping, robbing and murdering a 51-year-old local bank president by tying him to a concrete block and chain hoist and throwing him from a bridge into a lake.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Many had also killed prisoners while serving their sentences, a factor that can be used to determine whether to transfer a convicted criminal to a higher security prison.

“This Department of Justice will continue to hold accountable the families blindsided by President Biden’s reckless commutations of 37 vicious predators,” Bondi told Fox News Digital in a statement.

ADX, “the Alcatraz of the Rockies,” is the only true “supermax” federal prison in the United States, and its inmates are among the most notorious in the federal system.

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ADX Supermax Prison in Florence, Colorado, is a state-of-the-art segregation prison for repeat and high-profile felony offenders. (Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Sygma via Getty Images)

They include Ramzi Yousef, convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers; former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán, or “El Chapo”; and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the co-founder of Al-Qaeda.

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Although a commutation cannot be reversed entirely, Justice Department officials told Fox News Digital, Bondi has prioritized ways to penalize these individuals in coordination with Trump’s directives to ensure that “detention conditions” are “consistent with the security risks these detainees present due to their egregious crimes, criminal history, and any other relevant considerations,” according to an earlier DOJ memo.