Feb. 12 (UPI) -- A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has temporarily blocked the Trump administration's plans to relocate former death row inmates to the country's most restrictive supermax prison.
Judge Timothy J. Kelly ruled Wednesday that Attorney General Pam Bondi deprived the 20 prisoners of their 5th Amendment right to due process when the Justice Department initiated transfers of the 20 prisoners to the Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colo.
"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," Kelly wrote.
The 20 prisoners named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit were among 37 people on federal death row whose death sentences were commuted to life in prison by former President Joe Biden in the final days of his presidency.
Related
