Judge slams prisons on heat
Rebuke focuses on inmate deaths, lack of A/C units
A federal judge has ruled the Texas prison system and its top leaders must stand trial in a civil rights lawsuit over the heat-related death of an inmate, a sharp rebuke that focused new attention on the deaths of more than 20 other inmates in prison units that lack air conditioning.
The 83-page order by U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison — who personally visited a prison in the summer heat — cites the state’s own records documenting a heat index of about 150 degrees inside the Hutchins State Jail near Dallas, where inmate Larry Gene McCollum, 58, a cab driver from Bellmead near Waco, died during a heat wave in 2011.
Evidence indicates the heat inside the facility was exacerbated by sealed prison windows, sparse fans, an insufficient supply of cool water and inadequate medical care, the judge ruled.
“Larry McCollum’s tragic death was not simply bad luck, but an entirely preventable consequence of inadequate policies,” the judge wrote, in denying the state’s request to dismiss the lawsuit or grant immunity to prison officials. “These policies contributed to the deaths of 11 men before McCollum and 10 men after him.”
Prison officials said Tuesday they will appeal the ruling to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The order was issued Feb. 3 and unsealed this week in federal court in Houston.
The case — filed by McCollum’s widow and two adult children — is the latest in a series of federal lawsuits filed over heatrelated deaths inside Texas prisons and the dire conditions for disabled and medically vulnerable inmates who are particularly susceptible to hyperthermia. A separate class-action suit in Houston is challenging the state prison conditions in the Pack Unit near Navasota, which houses a number of elderly and disabled inmates.
The order notes that 22 inmates have died in Texas prisons from the heat, including 10 who died during the 2011 heat wave.
McCollum, who had been sentenced to one year in a state jail facility on a hot check conviction from McLennan County, was found having convulsions in his top bunk on July 28, 2011. He was taken to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, where his body temperature was recorded over 109 degrees.
Austin attorney Jeff Edwards, who is representing the family, said the deaths represent only those attributed directly to the heat, and not those in which heat may have contributed.
Ellison’s ruling was particularly harsh on Brad Livingston, the former head of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and other top-tier officials, who argued they had no specific knowledge of McCollum’s health or inadequacies in providing water, cool air and ventilation to inmates.
Ellison ruled that Livingston and four others should not be shielded by immunity typically granted to state workers doing their jobs, though he dismissed the case against a correctional officer who was the first to find McCollum having difficulties.
Ellison instead ordered that a jury consider evidence that officials allowed untenable and inhumane conditions at the Hutchins State Jail and other facilities in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
Prison officials said the state makes every effort to protect inmates and employees, though records indicate that hundreds of prison workers have also suffered heat-related illnesses in the facilities in the past decade.
“The safety, security, health and overall well-being of offenders is of paramount importance to the TDCJ,” said Jason Clark, the agency’s director of public information. “The agency strives to mitigate the impact of temperature extremes. Again, TDCJ is committed to making sure that offenders and staff are safe during the extreme heat.”
Systemwide, 29 of the state’s 108 prisons have air conditioning in the housing areas, including the medical, psychiatric and some geriatric units, Clark said. All prisons have some air conditioning, however, particularly in the wardens’ facilities, officials said.
A recent study commissioned by TDCJ found that retrofitting older prisons with air conditioning would be costly — nearly $80 million at Hutchins, with an annual operating cost of more than $400,000.
Ellison’s ruling opens a new standard for inmates wishing to sue over extreme indoor heat, said Randall L. Kallinen, a Houston attorney who has filed numerous civil rights suits alleging jailers were deliberately indifferent to inmates’ medical conditions at county facilities.
He said TDCJ may act now with money on the line.
“They knew people were dying, but they weren’t going to do anything about it. But now, because of their monetary concerns, they might go the other way,” he said. “It’s going to cost too much not to do something.”