MJP –
Dustin Thomas Davis, a 43-year-old prisoner from Texas, passed away on a hot day in June 2023 with a core temperature of 108 degrees Fahrenheit.
Elizabeth Hagerty, who was 37 years old at the time of her death the same month, was waiting for her release from prison in an unconditioned cell, had a heat rash, and was having trouble breathing. Her death was attributed in part to heat stress.
Additionally, the heat index outside the prison where 34-year-old Randy Butler passed down from a cardiac attack that same month was 114 degrees Fahrenheit.
The federal lawsuit, which was heard on Tuesday, claims that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is subjecting convicts to cruel and unusual punishment by keeping them in state prisons without air conditioning. It names all three of the deceased detainees.
In what might be a protracted legal struggle, attorneys representing the defendants appeared before Austin federal judge Robert Pitman on Tuesday, requesting that Pitman order Bryan Collier, the executive director of the Texas Department of Corrections, to maintain temperature controls in state prisons between 65 and 85 degrees. Since 1994, the temperature range has been mandated by state law for all Texas jails.
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“The only way to prevent further suffering and further deaths by inmates and further suffering by TDCJ staff is to order Mr. Collier to keep (prison) cells in a safe temperature range,” Wheeler, Trigg, and O’Donnell attorney Kevin Homiak stated.
The four-day session is expected to conclude on Friday and could feature testimony from up to 26 witnesses.
State attorneys countered on Tuesday that convicts are not being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment and that it would be difficult to swiftly install air conditioning system-wide without more funding from the legislature.
During the court hearing, Marlayna Ellis, an attorney representing the state attorney general’s office, informed the judge that the remedy could not be ordered since TDCJ would not be able to comply in the near future.
Pitman, who has presided over federal cases in the Western District of Texas since 2015, did not appear to be swayed by this specific argument.
“You can’t be telling me … that the conditions of confinement imposed by the state could be found to be cruel and unusual, but that nobody can do anything about it because the Legislature hasn’t given the funding,” Ellis said to Pitman. “That can’t be the case.”
Additionally, the state maintains that no inmate has died from “heat deaths” in over ten years; in April, TDCJ spokeswoman Amanda Hernandez told the American-Statesman that this had not happened since 2012. On Tuesday, the American-Statesman asked Hernandez for comment but did not react immediately.
The lack of air conditioning in Texas jails was linked to 14 annual deaths between 2001 and 2019, according to a study published in 2022 in the National Library of Medicine.
Several studies have indicated that “heat increases increase the health risk” for humans, including the chance of mortality. Dr. Antonella Zanobetti, a leading environmental epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health and a co-author of that report, testified Tuesday affirming this.
Former inmates at the Wallace Pack Unit, southeast of College Station, sued the state agency in 2012 after suffering heat injuries; according to TDCJ, that was the final year in which heat deaths happened. After the state agreed to permanently put air conditioning in the unit as part of the settlement, the former convicts who had sued were victorious.
On Tuesday, Marci Simmons, the community outreach director for Lioness Justice Impacted Women’s Alliance, spoke in front of a full courtroom. Simmons was there to support her.
“I was in survivor mode, complete survivor mode” during the ten summers that she spent in state jails without air conditioning, Simmons recalled. I felt like an animal in a cage, and nobody seemed to mind that we were confined in such a way.
She described trying to cool herself with toilet water, saw other prisoners have seizures and other heat-related medical crises, and even watched an egg boil on the floor of her prison cell.
In April, the nonprofit Lioness joined forces with the Coalition for Texans with Disabilities, Texas Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants, Texas Prisons Community Advocates, and Texas inmates in the complaint. According to Ellis, who is defending TDCJ, Lioness lacks standing to suit since it does not speak for all state prisoners and its parent organization is solely comprised of one person.
In Richard Linklater’s film “Bernie,” former funeral director Bernie Tiede recounts the murder of a wealthy 81-year-old widow. In April, the suit was revised to include several convicts besides Tiede.
On Tuesday, while testifying in his presence of handcuffs, a purple button-down shirt, and thick, black-rimmed spectacles, Tiede stated that he frequently could not sleep due to the extreme heat of the summer.
“Every summer, it’s more difficult to manage,” remarked Tiede.
According to the TDCJ’s court filings, the cost of permanently air conditioning all of its prisons would be around $1.1 billion, with an additional $20 million in operating costs. The department has stated that it is currently implementing air conditioning in as many units as possible with a record-breaking $85 million in funding that the Legislature approved in 2023.
While defending itself against a 2012 lawsuit brought by ex-convicts, TDCJ first estimated that retrofitting the Wallace Pack unit would cost over $500 million, but then reduced that figure to $4 million. According to the Texas Tribune, the state spent $7 million on the lawsuit’s defense, but the ultimate amount was far lower.
After the hearing, Pitman will determine whether to mandate the installation of air conditioning units throughout the state on an interim basis, prior to a trial on a permanent injunction.
