U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, an appointee of President Trump, ruled Wednesday that the men were likely to succeed in showing their due process rights were skirted by the administration in its bid to send them to the Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) in Florence, Colo.
“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,” the judge wrote in a 35-page ruling.
He added, “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.”
Despite their “heinous crimes,” the men will not be transferred to the facility nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies” as their lawsuit proceeds, Kelly wrote.
The former death row inmates saw their sentences commuted to life without parole by Biden in the final days of his term in December 2024. The sentences of 37 death row inmates were cut down, leaving just three “hard cases” in place.
Trump lashed out soon after, telling the inmates to “go to hell.”
When he took over the White House, he issued a day-one executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue the death penalty “for all crimes of a severity demanding its use.” He also directed the attorney general to ensure the 37 former death row inmates served out their life sentences in “conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.”
Lawyers for the men said that senior Justice Department officials had instructed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to send them all to ADX Florence regardless of individualized assessments.
The facility is intended to selectively house prisoners who have an “inability” to function in a less restrictive environment, Kelly wrote, pointing to declarations from people with firsthand knowledge of the institution, including one former prisoner who said he went 13 days “without hearing another human talk.”
“The record overflows with evidence describing the harshness of everyday life there,” the judge wrote.
Still, Kelly cast doubt on other claims in the men’s lawsuit, suggesting most are “longshots at best.”
Source: The Hill, Ella Lee, February 12, 2026
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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The decision won’t stand . The Department of Justice, Bureau of Prisons has the statutory authority to determine both the classification and housing location of inmates sentenced to its custody and control . This is a surprising and classical case of judicial overreach
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