Witnesses testify in first day of Texas prison heat lawsuit: 'I was in survivor mode'

When 43-year-old Texas prison inmate Dustin Thomas Davis died on a sweltering day in June 2023, his body temperature was 108 degrees Fahrenheit.

When 37-year-old Elizabeth Hagerty died the same month, she had no access to water, had developed a heat rash and was struggling to breathe in a non-air-conditioned prison cell where she was awaiting her imminent release. Heat stress was listed as a contributory factor to her death.

And when 34-year-old Randy Butler died the same month of cardiac arrest in another prison unit without air conditioning, the heat index outside was 114 degrees Fahrenheit.

All three deceased inmates are named in a federal lawsuit heard Tuesday that argues the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is inflicting cruel and unusual punishment on people who are locked in state prisons without air conditioning.

Attorneys in the case went before federal Judge Robert Pitman in Austin on Tuesday to ask that he compel TDCJ Executive Director Bryan Collier to keep temperatures between 65 and 85 degrees in state prisons while what might become a yearslong legal battle plays out. Texas jails have been required by state law to maintain that temperature range since 1994.

"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," said Kevin Homiak, an attorney for Wheeler, Trigg and O'Donnell.

The four-day hearing, which could involve testimony from as many as 26 witnesses, is scheduled to end Friday.

In response to the suit, lawyers representing the state argued Tuesday that installing systemwide air conditioning quickly would be impossible without additional money from the Legislature and that inmates are not facing cruel and unusual punishment.

"The court can't order this relief because TDCJ couldn't comply today, tomorrow or six months from now," Marlayna Ellis, a lawyer for the state attorney general's office, told the judge.

But this particular contention did not seem to convince Pitman, who has sat on the bench of the federal Western District of Texas court since 2015.

"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," Pitman responded to Ellis. "That can't be the case."

The state also denies that any prisoners have suffered "heat deaths" in more than a decade, with TDCJ spokesperson Amanda Hernandez telling the American-Statesman in April that no such deaths had occurred since 2012. Hernandez did not immediately respond to an American-Statesman request for comment Tuesday.

A 2022 study published in the National Library of Medicine concluded that an average of 14 deaths per year between 2001 and 2019 were associated with heat in Texas prisons without air conditioning.

Dr. Antonella Zanobetti, a top environmental epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health researcher who co-authored that study, testified Tuesday affirming that several studies have found that "increases in heat increase the risk to health" for humans, including the risk of death.

In 2012, which TDCJ says was the last year a heat death occurred, former prisoners sued the state agency due to heat injuries that occurred in the Wallace Pack Unit southeast of College Station. That case ended in victory for the former inmates who sued as the state settled the case by agreeing to install permanent air conditioning in the unit.

The courtroom was packed Tuesday with members of Lioness Justice Impacted Women's Alliance, who showed up to support the group's community outreach director Marci Simmons as she testified.

During the 10 summers she spent in state prisons without air conditioning, Simmons said, "I was in survivor mode, complete survivor mode. I felt like a caged animal, that no one cared that we were being housed that way."

She testified about watching an egg cook on her prison cell's floor, trying to cool down with toilet water and watching fellow inmates suffer seizures and other medical emergencies that she believed were heat-related.

Lioness, a nonprofit, joined the lawsuit alongside Texas Prisons Community Advocates, Texas Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants and the Coalition for Texans with Disabilities in April. Ellis, representing TDCJ, argued Lioness does not have standing to sue because it does not represent all state prisoners and because its parent organization only has one member.

The suit was originally filed by Bernie Tiede, a former funeral director whose murder of a wealthy 81-year-old widow is chronicled in Richard Linklater's film "Bernie," and it was amended in April to apply to inmates beyond Tiede.

Tiede wore handcuffs, a purple button-down shirt and thick, black-rimmed glasses as he testified Tuesday, saying it was so hot during the summer that he often was unable to sleep at night.

"Every summer, it's more difficult to manage," Tiede said.

The TDCJ has estimated in court filings that installing permanent air conditioning units in all its prisons would cost roughly $1.1 billion and add $20 million in annual operating costs, and the department stated that it is currently adding air conditioning to as many units as possible with a historic $85 million in funding that the Legislature approved in 2023.

In 2012 when TDCJ was sued by former inmates, it argued in court that retrofitting the Wallace Pack unit would cost roughly $500 million before it slashed that estimate to $4 million. The final estimate was significantly less than the $7 million the state spent on fighting the lawsuit, the Texas Tribune reported.

Once the hearing is over, Pitman will decide whether to order the state to temporarily install air conditioning units systemwide, pending a trial for a permanent order.

The Statesman will cover this case as it continues. Stay tuned for further coverage.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Witnesses testify in first day of Texas prison heat lawsuit: 'I was in survivor mode'