A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily barred the Trump administration from transferring 20 former death row inmates who were granted clemency by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the country’s most restrictive “supermax” prison facility in Colorado.
The ruling halted an effort by the Trump administration to follow through on promises to make the conditions of the men’s incarceration as punishing as possible in response to the show of leniency by Mr. Biden. It also set aside, for now, larger questions about the Trump administration’s authority to insert itself into procedures set by the Bureau of Prisons to move specific prisoners within the system at will.
Judge Timothy R. Kelly, nominated by Mr. Trump, wrote that despite the heinous nature of the crimes the men were convicted of, they appeared likely to succeed in showing that they were denied due process.
“That is so because it is likely their redesignations were determined before their process even began, and that — despite their hearings and appeals — they had no meaningful opportunity to challenge them,” he wrote. “But 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.”
Before the decision on Wednesday, Judge Kelly had declined in May to preemptively halt any transfer to the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colo., also known as A.D.X. and “the Alcatraz of the Rockies.” At the time, he ruled that the prisoners had not exhausted more routine options for appealing their transfers under the Bureau of Prison’s standard procedures.
But while the Trump administration previously committed to not moving any of the men until Oct. 31, because of delays in processing, several of the men involved in the case said they had failed to exhaust their appeals before the date the government had set. On Oct. 28, Judge Kelly had ordered the government to provide the court with 48 hours written notice before attempting to move any of the men, preserving their chance to lodge an emergency challenge after the deadline had passed.
On Feb. 4, the Trump administration filed a notice in the lawsuit saying it would go ahead and transfer “almost all” of the men who received commutations “no sooner than 10 days from the date of this filing.”
Less than a month before leaving office, Mr. Biden commuted the sentences of 37 men who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death, taking up the calls from human rights activists and nearly clearing death row. Mr. Biden left office with just three federal inmates left facing execution, making an exception for those whose cases involved terrorism and “hate-motivated mass murder.”
On Christmas Day in 2024, Mr. Trump protested the act on social media, telling the men to “go to hell.” The day he returned to office, he promptly signed an executive order directing the attorney general to categorically seek the death penalty, “regardless of other factors,” in a number of cases, including any capital crime committed by an undocumented migrant.
The executive order also directed the attorney general to see to it that the 37 men granted clemency be “imprisoned in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.”
Lawyers representing the men have argued that despite the serious nature of their crimes, under the bureau’s criteria, transfer to A.D.X. is typically reserved for “inmates who have demonstrated an inability to function in a less restrictive environment without being a threat.” From 1988 and 2024, at least 18 other death row inmates have had their sentences reduced to life in prison, and after being re-evaluated and moved off death row, none were sent to A.D.X., according to a sworn statement filed in April.
Lawyers for the men also said that the extremely restrictive conditions at A.D.X. complicate medical care, making it unsuitable for prisoners with serious health problems. Several of the men involved in the case had been receiving treatment for conditions including various cancers, traumatic brain injuries and chronic mental illnesses, according to the lawsuit.
Filings by the men’s lawyers described prisoners being held “behind two sets of doors in a ‘single occupancy cell’ smaller than an average parking space for 22-24 hours a day,” in a way that expert psychologists said was certain to exacerbate mental health issues.
The Bureau of Prisons conducted a review of the men after the commutation of their sentences last year, and determined all could be housed at other high-security facilities but not A.D.X. Yet in February, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered that those determinations be revisited and overruled.
Despite the ruling, Judge Kelly noted serious concerns about the strength of the men’s case. Though he blocked the transfer for the duration of the lawsuit, he described most of the other claims in the suit as “longshots at best.”
“At least for now, they will remain serving life sentences for their heinous crimes where they are currently imprisoned,” he wrote.
Zach Montague is a Times reporter covering the federal courts, including the legal disputes over the Trump administration’s agenda.
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