Hecker Fink and Co-Counsel Obtain Preliminary Injunction Preventing the Federal Government from Transferring Former Federal Death Row Inmates to ADX-Florence

Yesterday, Hecker Fink, along with co-counsel from the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the University of Denver School of Law, and the Law Offices of Sara Norman, obtained a preliminary injunction preventing plaintiffs—who were on death row but had their death sentences commuted to life in prison by former President Biden—from being transferred to ADX-Florence.  Judge Timothy Kelly (D.D.C.) ruled that plaintiffs have shown that it is likely that their redesignations to be transferred to ADX, which is the only Supermax prison in the federal system, were predetermined in violation of due process because officials with authority over the Bureau of Prisons made it clear that plaintiffs had to be sent to ADX Florence to punish them, no matter what result the ordinary Bureau of Prisons redesignation process might have yielded.  The court also concluded that plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm absent a preliminary injunction, and that the balance of equities and the public interest also favored injunctive relief.

The Hecker Fink team includes David Patton, Martin Totaro, Ian Robertson, Krysta Kilinski, Michael DeLuca, Jessy Jimenez, and John Cantor.

The opinion is available here.

New York Times coverage of the decision is available here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/us/politics/judge-halts-transfer-inm…