Wikimedia Commons / Larry D. Moore
Officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice deny that any prisoners under its care have died from heat in the past dozen years.
The reports, recently uncovered by public radio collaborative the Texas Newsroom, mention heat as a possible factor in the deaths of three inmates who expired last summer, including the two with core temperatures exceeding the century mark.
Although a 2023 Texas Tribune analysis estimates that there were at least 41 heat-related deaths in state prisons last year, officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice have repeatedly said there hasn't been a heat-related fatality since 2012.
The autopsy evidence is part of a suit initially filed by inmate Bernie Tiede, a convicted murderer who argues that the lack of air conditioning in dozens of Texas prisons violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
At least four nonprofit groups — the Texas Prisons Community Advocates, Build Up Inc., Texas Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants and the Coalition for Texans with Disabilities — have since joined the suit as plaintiffs.
About two-thirds of the 100 state jails and prisons operated by TDCJ lack air conditioning. Despite strict temperature regulations for county jails and even animal shelters, no such regulations govern how hot or cold Texas prisons can be kept.
The result is that heat inside the facilities routinely reaches triple digits, according to prisoner-rights advocates. Indeed, the TDCJ's Garza West Unit in Beeville exceeded 100 degrees for 11 straight days last year, according to the Texas Newsroom's investigation.
With little reprieve from the heat, Texas inmates last summer resorted to soaking their bedsheets in toilet water to stay cool, the Current reported.
TDCJ officials told the Texas Newsroom they doesn't count fatalities as heat-related unless heat is determined to be the primary cause. The state agency didn't immediately respond to the Current's request for comment.
With the help of the autopsy reports, Jeff Edwards, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, appears ready to argue that the sweltering temperatures inside state prisons is a direct cause of recent prisoner deaths.
Patrick Womack, who was serving a life sentence for a series of crimes in Liberty County, had a core temperature of 106.9 degrees at the time of his death last August, according to details from the autopsy documents reported on by the Texas Newsroom. Inmate John Castillo's core body temperature was 107.5 when he expired last summer at the Hughes Unit in Gatesville, according to the investigation.
"These are third-world conditions," Lance Lowry, the former head of the Correctional Officers Union, is cited as saying in the suit. "We're supposed to run prisons, not concentration camps. These are institutions for incarceration. The incarceration is their punishment. Not cooking them to death."
Although both Womack's and Castillo's autopsies mention heat as a possible contributing factor in their deaths, the TDCJ blamed other underlying issues.
"[The TDCJ] does not count those deaths as heat deaths because the primary cause of death was due to other reasons such as underlying medical disorders, overdoses, etc.," TDCJ spokesperson Amanda Hernandez told the Texas Newsroom.
Edwards told the news organization that any claim heat isn't killing Texas inmates is "an absolute falsehood."
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