The ACLU, along with other organizations, filed a lawsuit earlier this month attempting to block President Trump’s executive order transferring the 37 men, whose federal death sentences were commuted by President Biden before he left office, to the supermax prison in Colorado known as ADX.
The 37 individuals are currently incarcerated in a federal prison in Terre Haute, which houses federal death row.
Biden’s commutation of 37 of the 40 death-sentenced people on federal death row in December enraged Trump at the time. He took to his social media platform to tell the 37 to “GO TO HELL” on Christmas Day and excoriated Biden for the act. On his first day in office, he signed an executive order calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to “evaluate the places of imprisonment and conditions of confinement for each of the 37 murderers whose Federal death sentences were commuted by President Biden . . . . [and] take all lawful and appropriate action to ensure that these offenders are imprisoned in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.”
According to the ACLU’s lawsuit, Bondi promptly obeyed the order on her first day as AG and “instituted a new procedure replacing the usual BOP (Bureau of Prison) redesignation process. In defiance of the controlling statutes, regulations, and policies governing the BOP redesignation process, Defendants Bondi and [Emil] Bove (Acting Deputy Attorney General) ordered BOP staff to engage in a new sham process that categorically predetermined that all Plaintiffs—regardless of what the statutory BOP redesignation process had determined—will be incarcerated indefinitely in the most oppressive conditions in the entire federal prison system: USP Florence Administrative Maximum Facility (“ADX”), the only federal supermax prison, located in Florence, Colorado.”
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, “ADX is classified as a ‘supermax’ prison and houses prisoners deemed to be the most dangerous and in need of the highest levels of control and supervision. It was designed specifically to house prisoners who had committed extreme violence against staff or other prisoners while incarcerated. Prisoners at ADX are housed in single cells and are under 24-hour supervision; in the highest control unit, prisoners are kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.”
And the ACLU’s lawsuit states that “BOP’s policies and regulations acknowledge ADX’s harsh conditions, with a detailed process to be followed before transferring people there, including exclusions for people with medical or mental health conditions that could worsen by virtue of the extreme conditions of solitary confinement at ADX.”
In addition, “by categorically condemning Plaintiffs to indefinite incarceration in harsh conditions in response to their receipt of clemency from the previous President, it exceeds the statutory authority granted to the Attorney General and her deputy, and is arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion; it was made without proper notice and comment; and otherwise is not in accordance with law,” the ACLU states.
According to DPIC, at an April 17 hearing, “the DOJ agreed that the prisoners would not be moved until May 16 at the earliest. A hearing scheduled for May 12, 2025, will determine whether the court will block the transfers pending a trial on the merits.”
