On February 12, 2026, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly—a Trump appointee—blocked the administration from transferring 20 former death row inmates to ADX Florence, the federal “Supermax” prison in Colorado known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.” The judge ruled the transfers would likely violate the inmates' Fifth Amendment right to due process.
In December 2024, President Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 of 40 federal death row inmates to life imprisonment. On his first day back in office, Trump issued an executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to house these inmates “in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.” The administration then moved to transfer them to ADX Florence—the most restrictive federal prison in the country, typically reserved for the most dangerous terrorists and gang leaders.
Judge Kelly found that administration officials “made it clear” to the Bureau of Prisons that the inmates had to be sent to ADX Florence specifically to punish them because Biden had commuted their sentences. The judge wrote that “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.”
This reveals the cruelty at the heart of the order: Trump wasn't transferring these inmates for security reasons—he was doing it to override Biden's commutations through the back door. If you can't execute them, make their lives as miserable as possible. Even a Trump-appointed judge recognized this for what it was: punishment without due process.