Federal lawsuit wants Texas to put AC in all state prisons
TEXAS - A federal judge in Austin is hearing a lawsuit this week that aims to force Texas to put air conditioning in all state prisons.
"This lawsuit is about bringing temperatures to humane standards in our prisons so that nobody else has to die inside our Texas prisons," said Jennifer Toon, a formerly incarcerated person who is now project director of the Lioness Justice Impacted Women Alliance.
A group of advocates is trying to convince the judge the Texas prison system's lack of air conditioning qualifies as "unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment."
"Live in your car in a parking lot in Walmart in August Texas heat. Live inside there with the windows rolled up. That is the type of heat," said Toon.
On Wednesday, day two of that hearing, the plaintiff's attorneys pointed to a study showing an average of 14 heat-related deaths a year in un-air-conditioned prisons in Texas, compared to zero in prisons with air conditioning.
"I spent 10 summers in un-climate-controlled Texas prisons. Every summer it was about survival. I remember watching an egg be cracked on the dayroom floor, watching it fry, said Marci Marie Simmons, a formerly incarcerated person who also now works with the Lioness Justice Impacted Women Alliance. I remember thinking, 'if this heat can cook this egg, what is it doing to the inside of my body?'"
The plaintiffs called several experts to the stand Wednesday. Toxicologist Susi Vassallo concluded, "It's too hot and people will continue to die of heat stroke."
Elizabeth Hagerty died in prison last July.
"She had placed a note on the outside of her cell door begging for help, saying she was going to die because she was too hot," said Simmons.
MORE: Former prisoners describe suffocating heat in Texas lockups as they plead for air conditioning
University of Texas professor Michelle Deitch suggested the "unbearable" and "sweltering" heat is contributing to the prison staffing crisis.
Psychiatrist Jhilam Biswas said extreme heat leads to more suicides.
Simmons testified about her experience behind bars on Tuesday.
"I was trying to get across that conditions were dangerous during my incarceration," said Simmons. "The heat mitigation things that the state agency has put in place, they are ineffective."
The Texas Office of the Attorney General says conditions in Texas prisons do not meet the standard of cruel or unusual punishment. On Wednesday, lawyers for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice questioned whether air conditioning would actually make much of a difference, noting some of the autopsies referenced by the experts who testified do not list heat as the cause of death.
"In these autopsies, we're seeing that people's core temperatures were 107 and 109 degrees, and for the state to continue to gaslight us and our families and the public about, oh, these deaths, this increase in deaths has nothing to do with the heat," said Toon.
The defense declined to comment to FOX 7 on Wednesday, but in her questioning one of the defense attorneys noted the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has recently added 46,000 air-conditioned beds, plans to have 60,000 by 2027, and plans to air-condition all beds eventually, though no time frame was given.
The defense is expected to begin calling its own witnesses Thursday. The hearing is expected to last through Friday.