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Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks to the Religious Liberty Commission at the Museum of the Bible in Washington on Sept. 8, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times
The Justice Department has begun transferring former federal death-row inmates—whose sentences were commuted in the final days of the Biden administration—to what is widely considered the most restrictive prison in the United States, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Sept. 25.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed to The Epoch Times that eight men formerly condemned to death—convicted of murders including gang killings, prison stabbings, and the murder of two campers—were moved this week to the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, known as ADX.
Bondi said the transfers are part of an effort to address President Joe Biden’s “last-minute” December commutations of 37 death sentences, which she called “a stain on our justice system and a betrayal of the families of victims.”
“We have begun transferring the monsters Biden commuted to Supermax prisons, where they will spend the rest of their lives in conditions that match their egregious crimes,” Bondi said in a Sept. 25 statement on X.
Her statement also cited Fox News reporting that, according to DOJ officials, all 37 commuted inmates are expected to be relocated to the Colorado facility by early next year. While a presidential commutation cannot be undone, officials said Bondi has prioritized—consistent with directives from President Donald Trump—ensuring conditions of confinement are “consistent with the security risks those inmates present because of their egregious crimes, criminal histories, and all other relevant considerations,” as she wrote in an earlier memo.
The crimes of those already sent to ADX—sometimes dubbed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies”—include the kidnapping and drowning of a bank president, multiple inmate-on-inmate killings, and the double murder of a married couple camping in Ouachita National Forest in Arkansas.
ADX houses some of America’s most notorious offenders, including Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, and Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Inmates there spend most of the day in solitary confinement under 24-hour monitoring.
The transfers follow an executive order Trump signed on Jan. 20, his first day back in office, directing the attorney general to “evaluate the places of imprisonment and conditions of confinement for each of the 37 murderers” whose death sentences were commuted by Biden and to ensure they are held “in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.” Bondi followed with a Feb. 5 memo—Restoring a Measure of Justice to the Families of Victims of Commuted Murderers—ordering the Bureau of Prisons to implement the directive.
Biden’s commutations were part of a broader push to end federal capital punishment. In a December statement, he said the death penalty “must stop” at the federal level, except in cases of terrorism or hate-motivated mass murder. Three men—Robert Bowers, Dylann Roof, and Tsarnaev—remain under federal death sentences.
Trump’s policy shift prompted a legal challenge. In April, 21 of the 37 commuted inmates sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that Trump’s order and Bondi’s memo unlawfully short-circuited the Bureau of Prisons’ normal redesignation process after commutation.
“This is an action for declaratory and injunctive relief from the Trump Administration’s express targeting of Plaintiffs for categorical, unjustified, and unconstitutional punishment of incarceration in conditions of “monstrosity,'” their attorneys wrote.
The plaintiffs, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other groups, allege the transfers violate the Constitution’s prohibition on bills of attainder and ex post facto punishment, as well as the Fifth and Eighth Amendments, which include a prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments.” They also argue the DOJ acted arbitrarily and outside established procedures under the Administrative Procedure Act.
In May, Judge Timothy J. Kelly declined to issue an immediate injunction, citing the inmates’ failure to exhaust the Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP’s) administrative appeal process. He added that the court expects the DOJ not to move inmates until those appeals conclude, warning that transfers before then—or unusual truncation of appeals—would raise “serious questions about who is calling the shots: BOP or someone outside that agency.”
The DOJ has since argued in motions to dismiss that courts lack jurisdiction over prison-placement decisions and that ADX conditions do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. While acknowledging ADX is “restrictive,” the DOJ quoted precedent that “the Constitution does not mandate comfortable prisons, and prisons ... cannot be free of discomfort.”
The case remains pending before Kelly, with further proceedings expected. The Epoch Times has reached out to the plaintiffs’ ACLU counsel for comment on the transfers.
Tom Ozimek is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times. He has a broad background in journalism, deposit insurance, marketing and communications, and adult education.
