'Go to hell': Trump's message to Biden-commuted prisoners gave judge ammo to bar sending them to Supermax prison

A national justice successful Washington, D.C., has barred the Trump administration from transferring 20 erstwhile national decease enactment inmates to the "most restrictive" national situation successful the United States.

In April 2025, the plaintiffs, who had their sentences commuted to beingness successful situation without the anticipation of parole by Joe Biden, sued President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Though the underlying litigation began past spring, the genesis of the quality began the twelvemonth before. In December 2024, then-President-elect Trump reacted unfavorably to Biden's assistance of clemency and, successful a Truth Social post, told the prisoners to "GO TO HELL."

Then, connected the archetypal time of his 2nd term, Trump directed the U.S. Department of Justice to "take each lawful and due enactment to guarantee that these offenders are imprisoned successful conditions accordant with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose."

In turn, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a subagency of the DOJ, determined the prisoners would beryllium transferred to ADX Florence successful Colorado, the alleged "Alcatraz of the Rockies."

Now, successful a 35-page memorandum opinion, U.S. District Judge Tim Kelly, who was appointed by Trump during his archetypal term, has ruled the plaintiffs indispensable stay astatine their existent situation successful Terre Haute, Indiana.

While Kelly mused that "most of" the arguments made by the prisoners are "longshots astatine best," the justice said the plaintiffs' Fifth Amendment claims were apt to walk muster due to the fact that "their redesignations were determined earlier their process adjacent began" and "they had nary meaningful accidental to situation them."

"[T]he Constitution requires that whenever the authorities seeks to deprive a idiosyncratic of a liberty oregon spot involvement that the Due Process Clause protects—whether that idiosyncratic is simply a notorious captive oregon a law-abiding citizen—the process it provides cannot beryllium a sham," the sentiment reads. "In addition, specified a deprivation of law owed process amounts to irreparable harm."

The tribunal stressed the hole — maintaining the presumption quo for the duration of the suit — was impermanent and made definite to enactment the plaintiffs "committed immoderate of the astir horrific crimes imaginable." While ruling successful the prisoners' favour connected the large request, Kelly rejected a petition to enforce placement designations issued by the BOP anterior to the Bondi-penned memo directing the transfers to ADX Florence.

"Thus, the Court volition assistance their question to the grade it asks the Court to enjoin their transfers to ADX Florence portion this suit proceeds," the sentiment goes on. "At slightest for now, they volition stay serving beingness sentences for their heinous crimes wherever they are presently imprisoned."

Kelly repeatedly refers to however the 45th and 47th president "lashed retired against the commutations erstwhile they happened" and suggests this cognition each but "predetermined" the determination to nonstop them to ADX Florence with nary meaningful mode to situation the decisions.

"[A]fter then-President Biden commuted Plaintiffs' decease sentences successful December 2024, BOP was required to redesignate each of them to different facility," the bid explains. "From the start, arsenic Plaintiffs argue, Defendants 'have ne'er tried to conceal' their tendency to punish the commutees."

These unchallengeable decisions, the justice noted, eclipsed anterior determinations made astir each captive by the BOP. When BOP officials briefed Trump medication officials connected wherever they planned to nonstop the prisoners, they were overruled. Also, emblematic BOP criteria were near by the wayside.

"[T]he referral directive 'was not based connected the BOP's appraisal of the prisoners' information needs oregon of organization resources' but was alternatively owed to 'President Trump's Executive Order and a related memorandum issued by Attorney General Bondi,'" the court's sentiment continues, citing grounds which the DOJ did not effort to refute.

Then, erstwhile the prisoners attempted to vindicate their rights done the interior BOP entreaty process, they got nowhere, the justice noted. And, each the while, earlier those last determinations were issued, Bondi was "transparent astir seeking to punish Plaintiffs by sending them to ADX Florence" successful a bid of nationalist statements and meetings.

The tribunal suggested the penning was connected the wall.

"It strains credulity to judge that subordinate BOP officials carrying retired this process felt escaped to disagree with what had been demanded astatine the commencement by officials acold elder to them, with authorization implicit their careers and livelihoods," the sentiment goes on. "Thus, it is apt that determination was nary genuine accidental for Plaintiffs—at their hearings, during their appeals, oregon astatine immoderate different time—to reason their transfers to ADX Florence."

Kelly besides said the "identical outcomes" for each but 2 of the commuted prisoners — who person aesculapian conditions necessitating antithetic lodging — and the paperwork utilized to effectuate the ADX Florence determination "suggests a cookie-cutter process that yielded the aforesaid predetermined result" and a "a dramatic, azygous about-face successful however the redesignations were handled."

Overall, the sentiment suggests the effect was an casual call.

"The Court does not scope this decision without cautious consideration," Kelly writes. "But Plaintiffs person proffered an antithetic array of grounds successful enactment of their claim."

The justice offers a somewhat cautious upshot (emphasis successful original):

Plaintiffs person shown that it is apt their redesignations to ADX Florence were predetermined earlier they received immoderate process astatine all, and they had nary meaningful accidental to beryllium heard. Thus, they are apt to…succeed connected the merits of their owed process claim. The Court emphasizes that this decision astir their likelihood of occurrence connected this assertion says thing astir where—including ADX Florence—BOP should person decided to transportation immoderate of them. Nor does it needfully suggest that determination would person been nary mode for officials with authorization implicit BOP to play a relation successful the redesignation process.

"The Court concludes lone that connected the grounds earlier it, it is apt that the process provided to Plaintiffs was an bare workout to o.k. an result that was decided earlier it adjacent began, thereby contravening their owed process rights," the sentiment continues.