Federal Court: Uncivilized Texas Must Address Inhumane Prison Heat Conditions

From [HERE] and [HERE] A federal court is ordering the State of Texas to address summer heat conditions at a prison unit northwest of Houston.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has about two weeks to make a plan, ensuring vulnerable inmates are housed in units less than 88 degrees. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he plans to appeal the decision.

The preliminary injunction stems from a lawsuit filed in 2014 seeking cooler temperatures for inmates, citing a spate of deaths in the previous three years.

In 2016, the heat index at the unit surpassed 100 degrees on 13 days and hovered around the 90s degrees for 55 days, the ruling notes. No heat-related deaths have been reported at the unit, but at least 23 men have died because of heat in TDCJ facilities since 1998, Ellison wrote. Intermediary measures are necessary to avoid cruel and unusual punishment, he said.

“… the Court does not order defendants to reduce temperatures to a level that may be comfortable, but simply to a level that reduces the significant risk of harm to an acceptable one,” Ellison wrote.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton vowed to appeal the ruling, saying the state has taken significant measures to mitigate the effects of the sweltering conditions.

Inmates are allowed to wear shorts and t-shirts in housing areas during summer months, the ruling notes. They can seek relief in air-conditioned areas, including an infirmary, administration offices, visitation areas, the education department and the barbershop.

But, after a nine-day hearing in June 2017, Ellison concluded the measures are insufficient to combat the risk of serious injury or death in summer months.

In his ruling, the judge quotes Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s famous line about Siberian prisons: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”

“Prisoners are human beings with spouses and children who worry about them and miss them,” Ellison continues. “Some of them will likely someday be shown to have been innocent of the crimes of which they are accused. But, even those admittedly guilty of the most heinous crimes must not be denied their constitutional rights. We diminish the Constitution for all of us to the extent we deny it to anyone.”

We discuss the ruling, and what changes lie ahead for inmates at this Texas prison unit, with Charles “Rocky” Rhodes, constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston.

Per the ruling, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has 15 days to devise a plan to house some 500 “heat-sensitive” inmates housed in living quarters exceeding no more than 88 degrees at the Wallace Pack Unit, located about 70 miles northwest of Houston near Navasota.

The ruling was issued Wednesday (July 19, 2017) by US District Judge Keith Ellison. It also calls for easy access to respite areas for the remaining 1,000 inmates at the unit.