Judge: Lack of AC in Texas Prisons Is 'Unconstitutional'

A federal judge on Wednesday found the extreme heat in Texas prisons is "plainly unconstitutional," but declined to order the state to immediately start installing air conditioning, which could cost billions. The ruling affirmed claims brought by advocates of people incarcerated in Texas, where summer heat routinely soars above 100 degrees Fahrenheit for weeks, the AP reports. But they will have to continue pressing their lawsuit later in a trial. The lawsuit argues the hot conditions in the state facilities amount to cruel and unusual punishment, and seeks to force the state to install air conditioning.

• Texas has more than 130,000 people serving time in prisons, more than any state in the US. Only about a third of roughly 100 prison units are fully air conditioned and the rest have either partial or no electrical cooling.

• "This case concerns the plainly unconstitutional treatment of some of the most vulnerable, marginalized members of our society," US District Judge Robert Pittman wrote in his ruling on a request for a temporary injunction against the state. "The Court is of the view that excessive heat is likely serving as a form of unconstitutional punishment."
• But the judge said that ordering the state to spend "hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars to install permanent air conditioning in every (prison)," could not be accomplished before such an order would expire. Pittman said he expects the case will proceed to trial, where advocates for prisoners can continue to argue their case.

• The lawsuit was initially filed in 2023 by Bernie Tiede, the former mortician serving a life sentence whose murder case inspired the movie Bernie. Several prisoners' rights groups then asked to join his legal fight and expand it to encompass all Texas prisoners.
• A November 2022 study by researchers at Brown, Boston, and Harvard universities found that 13%—or 271—of the deaths in Texas prisons without universal AC between 2001 and 2019 may be attributed to extreme heat.
• In a weeklong hearing that sought the order for air conditioning while the lawsuit proceeds, former inmates testified about their experiences in hot prison buildings where they said temperatures reach above 120 degrees. They testified some inmates would splash toilet water on themselves to cool off, fake suicide attempts to be moved to cooler medical areas, or even deliberately set fires so that guards would be forced to hose down cells.

(More Texas stories.)