USA | They were on federal death row. Now they may go to a supermax prison.

A group of federal prisoners filed a lawsuit this week accusing the Trump administration of seeking to move them to a supermax prison to face tougher conditions as punishment for having their death sentences commuted by President Joe Biden.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life in prison without parole. After his inauguration, Trump ordered that the former death row prisoners be housed “in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.”

In court filings on Wednesday, 21 of the prisoners said that as a result of Trump’s order, they were going to be sent to a federal prison known as “ADX” in Florence, Colorado, to face what they called “the most oppressive conditions in the entire federal prison system.”

The Federal Bureau of Prisons says ADX is “a unique facility designed to house inmates who pose the greatest risks to staff, other inmates and the public.” The former death row inmates describe it in their lawsuit as a remote, brutally isolating facility and said they are only being sent there because of Biden’s commutations.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said the prisoners feared they could be moved to ADX from a federal prison in Indiana starting as soon as next week. In a court filing Thursday evening, the Justice Department said that “no final decision” had been made about any of the prisoners in the lawsuit and that none would face potential transfer until at least May 16.

A spokesman for the department declined to comment. The Bureau of Prisons said in a statement that it did “not comment on pending litigation or matters that are the subject of legal proceedings.”

Brian Stull, an attorney for the prisoners who sued, said “they feel devastated” to face potential transfers to ADX after having their sentences commuted.

“Nobody’s looking at how well they did in prison, or their rehabilitation,” said Stull, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project. “They’re just assuming they are the worst of the worst by virtue of their death sentences.”

He noted that the prisoners’ death sentences stemmed from a mix of factors, including whether his clients faced particularly aggressive prosecutors or had poor attorneys. The crimes involved, he said, were similar to many committed by people given life sentences by juries, through plea agreements or because prosecutors never sought the death penalty.

Trump has been a vocal supporter of capital punishment, and his administration has pledged to ramp up its use, including by seeking more death sentences.

During Trump’s first term, the Justice Department carried out 13 federal executions. Biden campaigned as an opponent of the death penalty, though his administration took a mixed approach, halting federal executions while defending existing death sentences and seeking new ones.

Opponents of the death penalty had pushed Biden to empty death row, fearing Trump would restart federal executions upon retaking office. The outgoing president in December commuted the sentences of all but three federal death row inmates: The surviving Boston Marathon bomber, and the gunmen convicted of bigotry-fueled massacres inside a Charleston, South Carolina, church and a Pittsburgh synagogue. All three were sentenced during Biden’s time as president or vice president.

The death penalty’s use has plummeted nationwide in recent decades, with fewer new death sentences and fewer executions. A Washington Post examination last year found that many of the more than 2,000 people on death row — largely held by states, not the federal government — were likely to die there without being executed.

In recent weeks, the Justice Department has begun taking steps to pursue new federal death sentences. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that she had directed prosecutors in New York to seek a death sentence for Luigi Mangione, who is charged with killing a health insurance executive there last year.

Last week, Bondi announced she had also authorized prosecutors to seek death for a federal inmate at ADX accused of killing another inmate there in 2020.

The lawsuit filed by the former federal death row inmates accuses Bondi and Emil Bove, one of her top deputies, of ignoring normal processes to have people given clemency by Biden transferred to ADX.

The lawsuit said “sham” hearings were held to conclude that the prisoners should be sent to ADX, calling the effort a “vindictive” punishment fueled by Trump’s animus.

“We have some very medically fragile clients,” said Stull, their lawyer. “We do not know if all of our clients can survive this transfer.”

Source: The Washington Post, Mark Berman, April 18, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

Comments

China executes 11 members of gang who ran billion-dollar criminal empire in Myanmar

China has executed 11 members of the notorious Ming family criminal gang, who ran mafia-like scam centers in Myanmar and killed workers who tried to escape, Chinese state media reported on Thursday. The Ming family was one of the so-called 4 families of northern Myanmar — crime syndicates accused of running hundreds of compounds dealing in internet fraud, prostitution and drug production, and whose members held prominent positions in the local government and militia aligned with Myanmar’s ruling junta.

Florida | Man convicted of leaving girl to be eaten by gators avoids death penalty

After about 4 hours of deliberations, jurors on Friday recommended Harrel Braddy should be sentenced to life in prison for the 1998 killing of 5-year-old Quantisha Maycock. A South Florida man who dropped off a 5-year-old child in the Everglades to be eaten alive by gators nearly 3 decades ago was given a second chance at life as jurors recommended he should spend the rest of his life behind bars instead of being sent to death row. After about four hours of deliberations, jurors on Friday recommended Harrel Braddy should be sentenced to life in prison for the 1998 killing of 5-year-old Quantisha Maycock.

Federal Judge Rules Out Death Penalty for Luigi Mangione in UnitedHealth CEO Killing

NEW YORK — A federal judge has dismissed two charges against Luigi Mangione, the man accused of assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, effectively removing the possibility of the death penalty in the high-profile case. U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett ruled Friday that the murder charge through use of a firearm — the only count that could have carried a capital sentence — was legally incompatible with the remaining interstate stalking charges against Mangione.

Georgia parole board suspends scheduled execution of Cobb County death row prisoner

The execution of a Georgia man scheduled for Wednesday has been suspended as the State Board of Pardons and Paroles considers a clemency application. Stacey Humphreys, 52, would have been the state's first execution in 2025. As of December 16, 2025, Georgia has carried out zero executions in 2025. The state last executed an inmate in January 2020, followed by a pause due to COVID-19. Executions resumed in 2024, but none have occurred this year until now. Humphreys had been sentenced to death for the 2003 killings of 33-year-old Cyndi Williams and 21-year-old Lori Brown, who were fatally shot at the real estate office where they worked.

California | Convicted killer Scott Peterson keeps swinging in court — but expert says he’s not going anywhere but his cell

More than two decades after Laci Peterson vanished from her Modesto, California, home, the murder case that captivated the nation continues to draw legal challenges, public debate and renewed attention. As the year comes to a close, Scott Peterson, convicted in 2004 of murdering his pregnant wife and their unborn son Conner, remains behind bars, serving life without the possibility of parole. His wife disappeared on Christmas Eve in 2002, and a few months later, the remains of Laci and Conner were found in the San Francisco Bay.

Oklahoma board recommends clemency for inmate set to be executed next week

A voting board in Oklahoma decided Wednesday to recommend clemency for Tremane Wood, a death row inmate who is scheduled to receive a lethal injection next week at the state penitentiary in McAlester. Wood, 46, faces execution for his conviction in the 2001 murder of Ronnie Wipf, a migrant farmworker, at an Oklahoma City hotel on New Year's Eve, court records show. The recommendation was decided in a 3-2 vote by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, consisting of five members appointed by either the governor or the state's top judicial official, according to CBS News affiliate KWTV. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Sitt will consider the recommendation as he weighs whether to grant or deny Wood's clemency request, which would mean sparing him from execution and reducing his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Death toll in Iran protests could exceed 30,000

In an exclusive report, the American magazine TIME cited two senior officials from the Iranian Ministry of Health, who stated that the scale of the crackdown against protesters on January 18 and 19 was so widespread that 18-wheeler trailers replaced ambulances. In its report, based on testimony from these two high-ranking officials, TIME revealed statistics that differ vastly from the official narrative of the Islamic Republic.

The US reporter who has witnessed 14 executions: ‘People need to know what it looks like’

South Carolina-based journalist Jeffrey Collins observed back-to-back executions in 2025 after the state revived the death penalty following a 13-year pause Jeffrey Collins has watched 14 men draw their final breaths. Over 25 years at the Associated Press, the South Carolina-based journalist has repeatedly served as an observer inside the state’s execution chamber, watching from feet away as prison officials kill men who were sentenced to capital punishment. South Carolina has recently kept him unusually busy, with seven back-to-back executions in 14 months.

Florida's second execution of 2026 scheduled for February

Florida’s second execution of 2026, a man convicted of killing a grocery story owner, will take place in February. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant Jan. 23 for Melvin Trotter, 65, to die by lethal injection Feb. 24. Florida's first execution will take place just a few weeks earlier when Ronald Palmer Heath is set to die Feb. 10. Trotter was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1987 for strangling and stabbing Virgie Langford a year earlier in Palmetto.

China executes another four members of powerful Myanmar-based crime family

China has executed another four members of a powerful Myanmar-based crime family that oversaw 41 pig butchering scam* compounds across Southeast Asia. The executed individuals were members of the Bai family, a particularly powerful gang that ruled the Laukkai district and helped transform it into a hub for casinos, trafficking, scam compounds, and prostitution. China’s Supreme People’s Court approved the executions after 21 members were charged with homicide, kidnapping, extortion, operating a fraudulent casino, organizing illegal border crossings, and forced prostitution. The court said the Bai family made over $4 billion across its enterprise and killed six Chinese citizens.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog