AUSTIN, Texas — A federal judge criticized Texas for keeping prisoners in jails without air conditioning, but did not order that the problem be fixed before summer. This is one of the biggest cases in the country over how to keep prisoners safe during dangerously high temperatures.
But U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman told Texas it needed to do something after ruling that the conditions in the jail system were unconstitutional. Lawyers leading the Texas case and other prisoner advocates say that this could be heard in other parts of the U.S. where similar problems are happening.
A lot of states, mostly in the South, are being sued over jail conditions in states where it often gets above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 Celsius). Texas is one of them. A group of men in Louisiana’s state jail asked a federal judge again this week to protect prisoners who are working in dangerously hot fields outside.
He said, “The judge found that Texas’s prison system was acting in a way that was unconstitutional and didn’t care about dangerous conditions.” Jeff Edwards was the lead lawyer in the Texas case.
He said, “Every warden and leader of a prison system is going to know about it.” “The message it sends is very strong.”
Other states’ jails will not be affected by the Texas case. But Corene Kendrick, deputy head of the ACLU National Prison Project, said the judge’s decision will be important for lawsuits that deal with the same problems: inmates being at risk of dying because of the heat and the fact that there is little or no air conditioning.
Kendrick said, “It’s important.”
There are over 130,000 people in jail in Texas. About one-third of the 100 prison rooms don’t have full air conditioning; the rest have some or no electrical cooling.
The first person to file the lawsuit was Bernie Tiede, a former mortician who is now serving a life sentence for murder. His story inspired the movie “Bernie.” Then, a number of prisoners’ rights groups asked to join his court battle and help it grow.
Several people who used to be prisoners in Texas said that prisoners would fake suicide attempts to get moved to cooler hospital areas, and some would start fires in their cells so that guards would have to hose them down.
Texas officials said that heat may have contributed to a few deaths in 2023, but they don’t agree with reports that it has had a much bigger effect. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice said Thursday that it has asked lawmakers for $118 million to cool down about 16,000 more beds.
As promised, TDCJ will keep adding beds with air conditioning to its facilities, the government said.
Last year, a federal judge in Louisiana told prison officials to add more shaded places, add more breaks, give sunscreen and medical checks to people who are especially vulnerable to the heat, and make sure there were enough breaks.
But the order did not stop work on a former slave plantation when temperatures hit or go above 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31.1 degrees Celsius), which is what the plaintiffs had asked for.
The judge’s order has since run out, and now a group of prisoners has asked for help again.
“As Louisiana moves into summer, the State continues to force prisoners to work in the fields of a former plantation, in dangerous conditions that put them at high risk of getting sick from the heat,” said Samantha Pourciau, Senior Staff Attorney at the Promise of Justice Initiative.
The Louisiana Department of Correction did not answer right away when asked for a statement.
A federal lawsuit in New Mexico says that eight prisoners were locked up in a prison transport van without air cooling for hours during the stifling summer heat. In Georgia, the family of a man who died says that he died because he was left in an outdoor cell without water, shade, or ice in July 2023 and then sued the jail in federal court.
The Texas case will go to trial, where the judge told the state that it might have to pay billions of dollars to put in permanent air conditioning.
The Texas Legislature is meeting right now to write the state budget for the next two years. At least three bills have been introduced by lawmakers that would help.
The Texas summer is coming up, so the temperatures are going up. It’s already been warmer than 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) in some parts of the state.
Edwards said, “I’m sorry we can’t protect them with relief this summer.” “But we’ll go as quickly as we can.”
