美国联邦地区法官蒂莫西·凯利（Timothy Kelly）发布的35页裁决书，引发了行政权力与囚犯程序权利之间的争议。
根据宪法第二条”忠实执行法律”条款，总统负责执行联邦法律，而由司法部长监督的联邦监狱局拥有决定囚犯服刑地点的广泛自由裁量权。
但凯利表示，政府在转移囚犯前必须首先给予他们有意义的机会来质疑这一决定，否则不得擅自转移。
作为特朗普任命的法官，凯利强调，他的裁决与这些前死囚所犯罪行的性质无关——他指出，其中许多人被定罪的罪行是”可想象的最骇人听闻的犯罪”。
“只要囚犯获得充分的程序保障，判处无期徒刑的囚犯被安置在佛罗伦萨ADX监狱并不涉及宪法问题，”他说。
相反，裁决书仅狭义地关注囚犯是否获得了真正的机会来反对转移，凯利指出他们没有得到这样的机会。这一命令对特朗普政府试图反击拜登总统任期最后一个月采取的大规模赦免行动是一个暂时打击。批评者称这些赦免行动是政治上的”孤注一掷”，缺乏适当审查。
“[宪法]要求，无论该人是臭名昭著的囚犯还是守法公民，只要政府试图剥夺其第五修正案所保护的自由或财产权益，所提供的程序就不能是形式主义的，”凯利表示。
案件的下一步行动尚不清楚，司法部拒绝对是否会寻求上诉这一裁决的请求置评。
特朗普政府正试图扭转拜登的大规模赦免行动，包括对37名死囚的减刑，其中许多人因极其残忍和暴力的犯罪被定罪。
其中一名囚犯因2003年7月在瓦希塔国家森林谋杀一对露营夫妇而被定罪。
另一名囚犯因绑架、抢劫并谋杀一名51岁的当地银行行长而被定罪——他将受害者绑在混凝土块和链式起重机上，然后从桥上抛入湖中。
许多囚犯在服刑期间还杀害了其他囚犯，这一因素可能被用于考虑是否将重刑犯转移至更高安全级别的监狱。
“司法部将继续追究因拜登总统鲁莽赦免37名凶残掠食者而受到影响的受害者家属的责任，”邦迪此前在一份声明中告诉福克斯新闻数字版。
ADX监狱被称为”落基山脉的阿尔卡特拉斯”，是美国唯一真正的联邦”超级监狱”，其囚犯是联邦系统中最臭名昭著的。
其中包括1993年世贸中心爆炸案主犯拉姆齐·优素福；波士顿马拉松爆炸案嫌疑人之一焦哈尔·察尔纳耶夫；前锡那罗亚贩毒集团头目华金·古斯曼（”矮子”）；以及基地组织联合创始人曼杜赫·马哈茂德·萨利姆。
根据美国司法部早些时候的一份备忘录，尽管减刑无法完全撤销，但邦迪已优先考虑与特朗普指示相协调的惩罚措施，以确保”监禁条件与这些囚犯因极其严重的罪行、犯罪历史和所有其他相关因素所构成的安全风险一致”。
布雷恩·德皮施（Breanne Deppisch）是福克斯新闻数字版的全国政治记者，专注报道特朗普政府，重点关注司法部、联邦调查局和其他全国性新闻。她此前曾在《华盛顿 examiner》和《华盛顿邮报》报道全国政治新闻，在《政治杂志》、《科罗拉多公报》等媒体发表过文章。您可以通过Breanne.Deppisch@fox.com向她提供线索，或在X平台关注她@breanne_dep。
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from transferring 20 former death row inmates to the federal “supermax” prison in Colorado, ruling the move likely violated their Fifth Amendment due process rights.
The 35-page ruling from U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly sets up a dispute between executive authority and prisoners’ procedural rights.
Under Article II’s “take care” clause, the president is charged with executing federal law, and the Bureau of Prisons — overseen by the attorney general — has broad discretion to determine where inmates serve their sentences.
But Kelly said the administration could not transfer the inmates without first giving them a meaningful opportunity to challenge the move.
Kelly, a Trump appointee, stressed that his ruling had no bearing on the nature of the crimes committed by the ex-death row inmates, many of whom he noted have been convicted of “some of the most horrific crimes imaginable.”
“The placement of an inmate with a life sentence at ADX Florence raises no constitutional concerns so long as the inmate is afforded adequate process,” he said.
Instead, the ruling focused narrowly on whether the inmates were given a real opportunity to contest the transfer, and Kelly said they were not. The order is a temporary blow to the Trump administration’s effort to counter sweeping clemency actions former President Joe Biden took during his final month in office, moves critics described as a political “Hail Mary” that lacked proper vetting.
“[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 said.
Next steps in the case were not immediately clear, and the Justice Department declined to respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on whether it would seek to appeal the ruling.
The effort comes as Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Trump administration have sought to reverse Biden’s sweeping clemency actions, including the commutations of 37 death row inmates, many of whom have been convicted of particularly heinous and violent crimes.
One individual was convicted of murdering a married couple camping in the Ouachita National Forest in July 2003.
Another was convicted of kidnapping, robbing and murdering a 51-year-old local bank president by tying him to a concrete block and chain hoist and tossing him off of a bridge and into a lake.
Many had also killed prisoners while serving time, a factor that can be used in weighing whether to transfer a convicted felon to a higher-security prison.
“This [Department of Justice] will continue to seek accountability for the families blindsided by President Biden’s reckless commutations of 37 vicious predators,” Bondi previously told Fox News Digital in a statement.
ADX, the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” is the only true federal “supermax” prison in the U.S., and its inmates are among the most notorious in the federal system.
Among them are Ramzi Yousef, convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers; former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán, or “El Chapo”; and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the co-founder of al Qaeda.
Though a commutation cannot be fully reversed, Justice Department officials told Fox News Digital, Bondi has prioritized ways to penalize these individuals in coordination with directives from Trump to ensure that the “conditions of confinement” are “consistent with the security risks those inmates present because of their egregious crimes, criminal histories, and all other relevant considerations,” according to an earlier DOJ memo.
Breanne Deppisch is a national politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration, with a focus on the Justice Department, FBI and other national news. She previously covered national politics at the Washington Examiner and The Washington Post, with additional bylines in Politico Magazine, the Colorado Gazette and others. You can send tips to Breanne at Breanne.Deppisch@fox.com, or follow her on X at @breanne_dep.
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