By Leigh Waldman, CNN

(CNN) — A decision whether to mandate air conditioning inside Texas prisons is in the hands of a federal judge, as advocacy organizations try to force the state to address what they allege are dangerous, deadly temperatures inmates endure.

For years leading up to the two-week trial in Austin, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice says it has made efforts to mitigate heat inside its prisons during the summer months. However, inmates’ advocates and lawyers say those efforts haven’t gone far enough: Temperatures can reach 149 degrees, they say, and the conditions amount to cruel and unusual punishment – violating inmates’ Eighth Amendment rights.

“There is a dangerous condition that everybody in the leadership knows about: It’s extreme heat inside the prison system,” Jeff Edwards, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, told CNN. “What they’re doing is not solving it, it’s not mitigating it. It’s killing people.”

The plaintiffs – a group of advocacy organizations that represent inmates – are requesting air-conditioning be installed in every inmate housing area in every state-run prison. They claim more than 270 people died in Texas prisons between 2001 and 2019 due to heat exposure, citing a 2022 study by researchers at Brown and Harvard University, among other institutions, which found these deaths were “likely attributable to extreme heat.”

The state denied this allegation in pretrial court filings – though it has acknowledged heat-related deaths, albeit much fewer: A TDCJ spokesperson told CNN that between 1998 and 2012 there were 23 heat-related deaths.

“There’s people that have families in here that they’re trying to get back home to,” an inmate inside one partially air-conditioned prison told CNN. “They made simple mistakes; they don’t deserve this.”

TDCJ – which says it has made strides in addressing the problem in recent years – declined to comment on pending litigation. On its website the agency said, “Core to the mission of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is protecting the public, our employees, and the inmates in our custody.”

Amite Dominick, president of the Texas Prison Community Advocates, has been fighting for the better part of a decade to change what she describes as unsafe conditions inside prisons. She coauthored the 2022 study and another report by Texas A&M University’s Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center that highlighted the issue and concluded the TDCJ’s heat mitigation policies were insufficient.

“I didn’t think I’d be doing this job for 10 years,” said Dominick, who testified for the plaintiffs. “I really thought that by now we would have seen the humanity of it all, and the legislators would have already have funded the money for this.”

“It’s unfortunate that it has to come to a lawsuit where we’re, you know, spending millions of dollars once again, and we could have taken those same monies and just put air conditioning in those units,” she told CNN.

The Texas attorney general’s office, which represents TDCJ in the case, did not respond to multiple requests for comment or questions about the plaintiffs’ allegations.

In a preliminary injunction, Judge Robert Pitman stopped short of ordering a temporary air conditioning remedy. But he did warn TDCJ he “foresees Plaintiffs being entitled to permanent relief in the form of expeditious installation of permanent air conditioning in all TDCJ facilities.”

Pitman is expected to make his final ruling in the coming weeks.

A ‘five-alarm fire’

During the trial, medical experts testified about the impacts of extreme heat on the body. Dean Williams, the former head of the Alaska and Colorado prison systems, testified for the plaintiffs, calling the lack of air-conditioning for the more than 130,000 inmates in TDCJ’s care a “five-alarm fire.” If he were running the system, he said, he “would be acting with urgency.”

The former TDCJ executive director Bryan Collier and his successor Bobby Lumpkin have both testified the costs of fully cooling roughly 100 prisons across the state of Texas would be more than $1 billion and take 23 years to complete at the current installation pace.

In his closing argument to the judge, Kevin Homiak, one of the plaintiffs’ lead lawyers, pointed to the deaths of several inmates between 2024 and 2025, whose body temperatures were not taken at the time of death – deaths he said were omitted from legally required annual reports to the Texas Legislature.

In a statement to CNN, a TDCJ spokesperson said there was “one death determined to be most likely heat related” during fiscal year 2024. In fiscal year 2023, the agency reported three deaths “where elevated temperatures were cited in the final autopsies as a possible contributing factor.”

“At least dozens of inmates have died from the extreme heat, and we know it’s getting hotter,” Homiak told CNN, referencing the number of deaths estimated by the 2022 study. “We know that if these prisons aren’t air-conditioned, and if the unconstitutional conditions persist, we’re going to see likely dozens more deaths in the coming summers.”

‘The heat radiates’

CNN spoke with three inmates inside the Choice Moore Unit in Bonham, about 70 miles northeast of Dallas, on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. The prison has hallways dedicated to respite and fans throughout, but it does not have air-conditioning throughout the facility.

“It’s more or less like being in a tin can, and you’re under, I guess, a magnifying glass, and the heat radiates in,” one inmate who has been at Choice Moore Unit for three and a half years said.

He says during the heat of the summer, it feels like it’s over 120 degrees inside the prison, and there’s little to no relief until the sun goes down. Throughout his years at the unit, he said he’s seen some of the heat-related illnesses firsthand and says tempers rise with the temperatures.

“I’ve seen more of the incidents that, you know, occur of the violence or anything happening during the summer than any other time during the year,” he said.

Another inmate who has been there for a year and a half says he continually pours cold water on himself throughout the day to try to stay cool.

The third inmate is preparing for his first summer inside the Choice Moore Unit. He said he feels anxious, and the men who have been there longer offer advice on how to prepare, stay cool and stay safe.

When asked what he thinks of their conditions, the third inmate said it’s nothing short of cruel and unusual.

“If you put a bunch of animals in a warehouse in the middle of summertime in the deep South, in Texas, where we are at, I think that would be considered animal cruelty,” he said. “If there’s a standard of care for dogs, then the same standard, if not more, should be the same for human beings.”

When asked what he would say to the head of TDCJ or the lawmakers in charge of the state budget about the conditions inside the prison, he asked them to consider what prisons were made for: rehabilitation.

“If they expect us to come out of this society and to be contributing members of that society, they should start treating us like they want us to be a part of that community…that eventually most of us are going to reenter,” he said.

Effort could cost more than $1 billion, state says

While there is currently no air conditioning standard for TDCJ facilities, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, which was created by the Texas Legislature in 1975, requires county jails to be kept between 65 degrees Fahrenheit and 85 degrees Fahrenheit in occupied areas.

A TDCJ spokesperson told CNN they could not comment on ongoing litigation but did share efforts underway to help keep inmates and staffers cool at their facilities.

Today, 38 units are fully air-conditioned, with an additional 52 partially cooled, according to TDCJ – the main distinction being whether a full housing area is air-conditioned or only select parts.

In 2018, it was made a priority to add “cool beds,” which TDCJ describes as beds in air-conditioned housing areas, and respite areas where prisoners can get access to cooler temperatures for 10 to 15 minutes at a time.

There are more than 52,000 cool beds available for inmates, per the agency; however, that doesn’t cover even half of the number of the state’s 130,000 incarcerated individuals.

“Over the last several years, the agency has worked to increase the number of cool beds available,” TDCJ said on its website. “TDCJ is dedicated to continuing to add air-conditioned beds in our facilities.”

“These changes have been instrumental in reducing the number of heat-related illnesses and deaths across the system,” the state said in court filings. In 2025, TDCJ recorded 13 instances of heat-related injuries to inmates, down from 25 the year before.

During the 2023 and 2025 Texas legislative sessions, TDCJ received a combined $203 million for the installation of air conditioning.

The state has said providing air conditioning to all its prisons would cost more than $1 billion, and even if the judge were to rule in the plaintiffs’ favor, state lawmakers would still need to allocate the funding in the state budget.

The plaintiffs believe their demands are achievable.

“We asked for an order that the system be fully air conditioned by the end of 2029, which is what our experts have said is reasonable and can be done with full funding,” Homiak said.

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