Bernie Tiede, arguably Texas’ most famous living convicted murderer, is leading a lawsuit to force the state to air condition its prisons.
County jails in Texas must be kept between 65 and 85 degrees but state prisons don’t have to be air conditioned. That amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, according to Tiede and a coalition of lawyers and advocacy groups.
Their expanded lawsuit, announced Monday, accuses prison leaders of hiding evidence that inmates have died due to the extreme heat and demands the A/C be installed in the dozens of state-run prisons that currently lack it.
Tiede, a mortician whose murder of an 81-year-old widow was immortalized in Richard Linklater’s dark comedy “Bernie,” was moved to a cell with A/C last year after he sued the state in federal court.
This legal challenge expands on his previous suit. The advocacy groups on the amended complaint include Texas Prisons Community Advocates, Build Up, Inc., Texas Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants and the Coalition for Texans with Disabilities.
“Letting people suffer or die in prisons because of dangerous temperatures disregards our basic humanity,” Dean William, a former leader of the Colorado and Alaska prison systems, said in a press release released Monday.
State law does not require prisons to have A/C. As of summer 2022, just 31 of the 100 state-run lockups had air conditioning in all prisoner housing areas. Temperatures inside the state’s non-air conditioned units averaged well over 85 degrees last June, according to state data. Some reached as high as 106 degrees that month.
Tiede is currently serving his 99-year murder sentence at the Estelle Unit in Huntsville.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has defended its protocols for extreme heat, which include providing prisoners with extra water and access to cool “respite” areas. The agency says no one has died from the heat since 2012.
The Texas Newsroom has reached out to the agency for comment on the updated lawsuit.
This isn’t the first time Jeff Edwards, the suit’s lead attorney, has sued the state over the heat inside prisons. In 2018, the state agreed to install A/C at a prison for elderly and medically vulnerable inmates after Edwards led a coalition of inmates who sued over the conditions.
The A/C cost less than $4 million to install — a fraction of the original estimated cost and cheaper than the $7.3 million the state spent to fight that lawsuit.
State lawmakers have waffled over whether to cool state prisons. Last year, the Texas House passed a bipartisan prison heat bill, but the legislation failed in the Senate. And while budget writers included some funding in for prison “deferred maintenance” projects in the state’s most recent budget, they did not require it to be used for A/C.
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Traditional_Key_763 on April 22nd, 2024 at 21:30 UTC »
if workers aren't legally required to have protection from the heat i don't see the courts in texas giving a shit
defroach84 on April 22nd, 2024 at 20:10 UTC »
I used to work at a place that wasn't a/c'd in Texas. A manufacturing floor that just was open air, with lots of fans.
It was fucking miserable. Granted, I wasn't even a line worker, had an office job that had a/c in it, but often would be on the floor.
I can't imagine suffering through that 24/7.
BreadTruckToast on April 22nd, 2024 at 19:40 UTC »
Anyone asking “yeah but what about my house / apartment” SHOULD be asking that given how deadly heat can get, but don’t preclude someone else from being saved from being roasted alive just because you also need assistance.
We can have all these conversations and attempt to hold the powers that be accountable for killing people because they didn’t want to spend a bit more money.