FW: TDCJ Heat Case
Dianne Tramutola-Lawson
Civil trial ordered of Texas prisons, leaders in heat death
A federal judge has ordered a civil trial of the Texas prison system and its leadership in a civil rights lawsuit arising from the heat-related death of an inmate, saying state prison officials refused to provide air conditioning that could have also kept 21 other inmates alive.
Larry Gene McCollum, a 58-year-old Waco-area taxi driver, was among 22 inmates who have died front the heat in Texas prisons since 1998, including 10 during a 2011 heat wave alone, U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison of Houston wrote.
McCollum was serving a one-year sentence in the Hutchins State Jail near Dallas for writing a bad check when he died of a heat stroke on July 22, 2011, just seven days after he arrived at the jail.
In an 83-page opinion filed Tuesday, Ellison, who visited state prisons during the peak of the summer heat, wrote that prison logs showed that the day before McCollum's death, the outside air temperature was above 90 degrees for at least nine hours and above 100 degrees for at least six hours, peaking at 107 degrees and staying at 106 degrees at 6:30 p.m., when the last recording of the day was taken. Humidity never fell below 40 percent that day.
Although the log represents that the heat index at 3:30 p.m. was 116 degrees, a chart provided by the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and used by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice computes the heat index was about 150 degrees.
The jail utilizes air handlers for ventilation, which circulate outside air through the facility without changing its temperature, Ellison wrote.
"Larry McCollum's tragic death was not simply bad luck, but an entirely preventable consequence of inadequate policies. These policies contributed to the deaths of 11 men before McCollum and 10 men after him," Ellison wrote.
Texas CURE
Texas CURE
Texas Cure is an Inmate/Inmate Family Support (501c3) Group. We contact legislators and prison administrators to advocate for better prison conditions. We support education and essential work skills that prepare reformed criminals for the free world. Texas prisons are not air-conditioned. We help indigent prisoners survive brutal Texas summers. Fans ($20 each) save stress and lives. If you wish to support our Fan Project for indigent prisoners, please send checks to the address above or donate at http://www.texascure.org