It is hard to breathe — lungs gasping for air and eyes fuzzy from caked-on sweat — no water in sight, only a beating sun. This is not the story of a damned sailor; it is the reality thousands of inmates in Texas prisons face every summer. An ongoing lawsuit against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice alleges the obvious truth: Texas is, yet again, blatantly violating the Constitution.
The Eighth Amendment explicitly states, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Since 1970, courts have found entire prison systems unconstitutional, such as Georgia’s in a 2024 case, and the current Texas system is no exception. Inmates have to endure contaminated drinking water, tortuous mental health facilities and especially excessive heat. More than 80,000 Texas inmates swelter in 90° or more heat for months at a time without air conditioning and are frequently left for dead.
Officials attempt to cover themselves from these deaths by citing supposed discrepancies in medical terminology and the existence of preexisting conditions — including some that are either “unspecified” or would make no difference in a heat-related death — but these counters hold no water. Other than the thousands of complaints from inmates and cut and dry evidence of underfunded cooling systems, bodies often have no recorded temperature at the time of death. Even when they do and are confirmed as heat-related deaths by autopsy, officials continue to deny wrongdoing, only admitting negligence under the penalty of perjury. A 2022 Brown University study plainly found that “an average of 14 deaths per year between 2001 to 2019 were associated with heat in Texas prisons without [A/C].”
If personal relations jargon over technicalities does not get them far enough, officials can always count on woeful pleas about money to get them by. Time and time again officials claim that the TDCJ lacks the funds for adequate A/C. Although true, they willingly ignore the fact that the Texas legislature continuously fails to pass any legislation requiring A/C in prisons, while providing a fraction of the actual cost estimate. Statewide A/C’s would require the TDCJ to spend an additional $1.5 billion, a drop in the bucket compared to the billions wasted on the border. In addition, the TDCJ has shown no interest in pushing for said funding, instead happily acting like a clueless pyromaniac standing around a self-started fire.
The TDCJ could not care less about the Constitution and is far more concerned with saving its own skin. They not only allow excessive cruelty and death, but they fail to act on a founding American principle. Revolutionary Thomas Paine expressed the view of the Founders succinctly: “An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty.” Here is a hint: If the presiding judge calls the defense “plainly unconstitutional,” a better side worth fighting for must exist. In a time inundated with constitutional disrespect, urge lawmakers to uphold this country’s true beliefs.
