A federal judge appointed by President Trump has blocked the administration’s plan to transfer 20 former death row inmates to ADX Florence, the notorious Colorado supermax prison known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” ruling that the government’s review process was likely a sham that violated the inmates’ constitutional rights.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a preliminary injunction on February 11, finding that officials appeared to have decided on the transfers before conducting any real case-by-case review, then created paperwork to justify those decisions after the fact. Kelly called the process “cookie-cutter” and said the paperwork “yielded the same predetermined result.”
“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,” Kelly wrote in his 35-page opinion.
The fact that Kelly was appointed by Trump gives the ruling extra weight. This is not a case where an ideological opponent on the bench is blocking the administration. It’s a Trump-appointed judge saying the administration cut constitutional corners.
How the Push to Transfer Inmates Began
The dispute traces back to December 2024, when President Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 federal inmates to life without parole. Trump responded almost immediately on social media, telling the inmates to “GO TO HELL.” Days after taking office in January 2025, he signed an executive order titled “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety,” directing the Attorney General to ensure the commuted inmates were held “in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi followed with a memo on February 5, 2025, ordering the Bureau of Prisons to align the inmates’ conditions with the president’s priorities. The compressed timeline told the story: just over two weeks from executive order to operational directive.
By September 2025, Bondi was openly celebrating the transfers on social media.
Eight inmates had already been shipped to ADX Florence before the court stepped in. At least 10 had been transferred by December.
The BOP’s Own Evaluation Said No
Here’s the detail that undercuts the administration’s argument most directly: the Bureau of Prisons had already evaluated every one of the 21 plaintiffs before the new administration arrived. None of them were flagged as appropriate candidates for ADX Florence. Some didn’t pass mental health screenings. Others required medical care that ADX can’t provide.
That assessment changed overnight once the executive order landed. According to conversations between attorneys and BOP lawyer Christopher Synsvoll cited in the ruling, Synsvoll admitted the referrals to ADX were “not based on the BOP’s assessment of the prisoners’ security needs” but rather on Trump’s executive order and Bondi’s memo.
“Almost immediately, counsel for all Plaintiffs were informed that they would be referred to ADX Florence,” Kelly wrote, “regardless of their individual assessments.”
Kelly found that the administration’s review was not a genuine evaluation of each inmate’s risk. It was a political decision wrapped in bureaucratic paperwork. “It is likely their redesignations were determined before their process even began,” he concluded.
What ADX Florence Actually Means
ADX Florence isn’t just another federal prison. It’s the only true supermax facility in the federal system, built for inmates the Bureau of Prisons says have an “inability to function” in less restrictive settings. It has housed Ted Kaczynski, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Inmates there live in near-total isolation. One former prisoner said he went 13 days without hearing another person speak. Communication is sharply restricted, programming is minimal, and human contact is almost nonexistent.
Lead plaintiff Rejon Taylor put the conditions in stark terms in a Newsweek interview: “It’s a bit ironic that I would prefer being on federal death row to ADX. But it just shows you the trajectory that we’re on that we would prefer to be in solitary confinement on federal death row than the ADX.”
Courts have long recognized that transferring someone to those conditions represents a major enough change that it can trigger due-process protections. Kelly’s ruling reinforces that principle, making clear that the government needs to provide notice, a real opportunity to contest the transfer, and a decision based on evidence rather than politics.
Both Sides Dig In
The ACLU, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of 21 inmates, framed the ruling as a check on executive overreach.
“Judge Kelly’s decision makes clear that the Trump administration cannot disappear people to the harshest prison in the federal system to score political points,” said David Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “This injunction ensures that our clients will not be subjected to extreme and irreversible harm before their Constitutional claims are heard.”
The Justice Department pushed back hard. A DOJ spokesperson told Fox News that “the murderers whose death sentences Joe Biden commuted are among the most heinous criminals in the federal system,” calling the ruling “grievously wrong” and warning that it “will not be the final word.”
Kelly was careful to note that his ruling had nothing to do with the severity of the crimes committed, acknowledging that many of the inmates were convicted of “some of the most horrific crimes imaginable.” His point was narrower: the placement of a life-sentence inmate at ADX Florence “raises no constitutional concerns so long as the inmate is afforded adequate process.”
The case is expected to be appealed. For now, the 20 inmates covered by the injunction remain at their current facilities, and the broader question of where executive authority over prisons ends and constitutional rights begin remains open.
