The State of Texas has asked a federal appeals court to overturn a ruling that gave the Texas Department of Criminal Justice until the end of 2029 to air-condition all 104 of its prison facilities.
State lawyers took the case to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and, in an Oct. 8 filing, asked the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, to put his order on hold while the appeal is pending, The Texas Tribune reported Monday.
The filing argues that forcing the deadline before the appeals court rules would bring "chaos and confusion" to the agency's existing cooling plans and waste limited money. It says the state is likely to win on appeal because the legal bar for "deliberate indifference" is hard to meet, and that the agency does not dispute that many units are only partly air-conditioned.
The September ruling
Pitman ruled Sept. 22 after a two-week trial in Austin earlier this year. He found that the agency's response to extreme heat fell short and that conditions in uncooled units violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. He found that at least nine inmates died of heat in Texas prisons from 2023 through 2025.
The agency disputes that count and points to other factors such as overdoses and medical conditions, according to the Tribune.
The case began in 2023 with a complaint by an inmate who suffered a heat-related medical emergency. Advocacy groups joined in 2024 and widened it to cover every person kept in a state prison without cooling.
As of Oct. 1, a little more than a third of state prisons had full climate control, which left about 90,000 people without air conditioning, the Tribune reported.
