Judge blocks Trump’s transfer of death row inmates commuted by Biden

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration likely violated the constitutional rights of 20 prisoners when it moved them to the federal government’s most restrictive prison.

All 20 had been on death row until President Biden granted them commutations on his way out the door after the 2024 election.

No longer on death row, they had to be moved from the special confinement unit at the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee to the court in Washington, said the government was supposed to do an individualized assessment on each to figure out where they should go.

But he said an Inauguration Day executive order by Mr. Trump tainted that decision-making and caused all of them to be sent to the most draconian prison in the federal system, the Administrative Maximum Facility in Colorado, commonly called ADX Florence and known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies.

“Plaintiffs have shown that it is likely their redesignations to ADX Florence were predetermined before they received any process at all, and they had no meaningful opportunity to be heard,” Judge Kelly wrote.

He issued an injunction ordering the government to keep the prisoners at their current location while the lawsuit proceeds.

The 20 inmates were part of a group of 37 death row prisoners whose sentences Mr. Biden commuted.

Mr. Trump “lashed out” against the commutations when they happened, Judge Kelly said.

His Inauguration Day executive order directed the Justice Department to figure out a location where the 37 should end up.

Attorney General Pam Bondi quickly followed up with her own directive and the word quickly spread that they were headed to ADX Florence.

They went through a hearing and appeal process but all of them ended up there anyway.

Judge Kelly said that violated their due process rights.

“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,” he wrote.