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chrisgeidner.bsky.social
This is a damning, astounding opinion from Kelly, writing about the Justice Department's treatment of federal prisoners under their control:
Plaintiffs Are Likely to Succeed on Their Due Process Claim The crux of Plaintiffs' due process claim is their allegation that Defendants "carried out a sham process solely to effectuate a predetermined result," thereby "imposing uniquely brutal conditions ... without any meaningful process." ECF No. 4-1 at 28, 31. Whether they are likely to succeed on this procedural claim under the Due Process Clause is assessed in two steps. "[T]he first asks whether there exists a liberty or property interest which has been interfered with by the State; the second examines whether the procedures attendant upon that deprivation were constitutionally sufficient." Ky. Dep't of Corr. v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 460 (1989) (citations omitted). Here, Plaintiffs have shown that it is likely that their redesignations were predetermined-and thus violated their due process rights-because officials with authority over BOP made it clear that they had to be sent to ADX Florence to punish them, no matter what result the ordinary BOP process might have yielded. The Court does not reach this conclusion without careful considera-tion. But Plaintiffs have proffered an unusual array of evidence in support of their claim. That evidence, described below, shows it is likely that (1) officials with authority over BOP sought to punish Plaintiffs because then-President Biden had commuted their death sentences; and (2) those officials intervened in the BOP redesignation process that was already underway, dictating out- comes with which BOP officials subordinate to them were not genuinely free to disagree-and which resulted in a dramatic, uniform about-face in how the redesignations were handled. From all this largely consistent and unrebutted evidence, it is not hard to conclude that it is likely that "following the Executive Order, the BOP committee was told to look at what the President and the AG were saying," that "[t]he BOP committee members took that to mean that everyone needed to be referred to ADX [Florence]," and that in the end, BOP officials understood that Plaintiffs had to be transferred there. ECF No. 4-32 91 12-13. It strains credulity to believe that subordinate BOP officials carrying out this process felt free to disagree with what had been demanded at the start by officials far senior to them, with authority over their careers and livelihoods. Thus, it is likely that there was no genuine opportunity for Plaintiffs— at their hearings, during their appeals, or at any other time-to oppose their transfers to ADX Florence.
February 12, 2026 at 4:16 AM