Judge Halts Transfer Of Former Federal Death Row Inmates To ‘supermax’ Prison

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from transferring 20 former death row inmates to a notorious maximum-security prison in Colorado, concluding that President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi had dictated the decision before the men had a chance to contest it.

“The Constitution requires that whenever the government seeks to deprive a person of a liberty or property interest that the Due Process Clause protects — whether that person is a notorious prisoner or a law-abiding citizen — the process it provides cannot be a sham,” U.S. District Judge Tim Kelly wrote in a 35-page opinion requiring the men to remain in their current prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Kelly, a Trump appointee, emphasized that he was not ordering the release of any of the convicts, who were convicted of “some of the most horrific crimes imaginable.” Many were sentenced to death for murders that took place in the course of other crimes such as drug trafficking, robbery or kidnapping.

“At least for now, they will remain serving life sentences for their heinous crimes where they are currently imprisoned,” Kelly wrote.

The judge noted that a Federal Bureau of Prisons policy allows assignment to the so-called supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, in only two circumstances: when ”placement in other correctional facilities creates a risk to institutional security and good order or poses a risk to the safety of staff, inmates, others, or to public safety” or, alternatively, when an inmate’s “status” is such that he “may not be safely housed in the general population of another institution.”

The judge said public statements by Trump and Bondi had guaranteed that the men would be transferred to the supermax facility, regardless of those standards.

“It is likely that the process provided to Plaintiffs was an empty exercise to approve an outcome that was decided before it even began,” Kelly wrote.

First, Kelly noted, Trump had issued an executive order on the first day of his second term requiring Bondi ”to ensure that these offenders are imprisoned in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.” And then, the judge said, Bondi’s efforts to carry out the order — and her public statements about it — short-circuited the process.

He noted that Bondi had guaranteed the men would “spend the rest of their lives” in a supermax prison “in conditions that match their egregious crimes.”

“It strains credulity to believe that subordinate BOP officials carrying out this process felt free to disagree with what had been demanded at the start by officials far senior to them, with authority over their careers and livelihoods,” Kelly wrote. “Thus, it is likely that there was no genuine opportunity for Plaintiffs—at their hearings, during their appeals, or at any other time—to oppose their transfers to ADX Florence.”

Kelly said prison authorities were entitled to “deference” from the judicial branch and he said he was “in no position to second guess the merits” of the transfer decisions. However, he said the “paperwork” detailing the decisions “suggests a cookie-cutter process that yielded the same predetermined result.”

Justice Department spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment.