In Austin, Texas, the state's Department of Criminal Justice is facing a lawsuit for allegedly subjecting inmates to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment, The Guardian reports. The opening line of the complaint bluntly claims: “Texas prisoners are being cooked to death.” With Texas reaching its summer temperature peak over the next few days, the complaint says that prisoners suffer 100F-plus heat on a daily basis. On average, 14 people die of extreme heat in their cells annually, the plaintiffs say – a figure the state disputes. The legal action aims to force the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to air condition all its prisons, about two-thirds of which currently lack AC. As a result, about 85,000 prisoners across dozens of correctional institutions are estimated to be at risk of heat stroke, exhaustion, nausea and other heat-related conditions, even to the point of death.
The lead plaintiff is Bernie Tiede, a former mortician serving 99 years to life for the 1996 murder of his companion, a wealthy 81-year-old widow. Tiede gave evidence at the hearing, telling the court that he suffered a stroke last year when he was in a prison lacking air conditioning. At the hearing, the head of the state’s prison service, Bryan Collier, blamed the failure to tackle the heat problem on a lack of cash. “It’s not a simple solution,” he said, telling the court that much more money had to be released to cover the costs of installing AC throughout the prison system. Texas currently has $33 billion in its reserves. The TDCJ denies that there have been any deaths caused by heat since 2012, insisting that fatalities during the summer months can be explained by inmates’ underlying medical conditions. Collier admitted, however, that extreme heat contributed to the deaths of three prisoners during the brutal heat wave in Texas last year. Federal judge Robert Pitman has given both sides until August 20 to submit final arguments.