Texas Fights Court Order to Air-Condition Every Prison by 2029
The state has asked the 5th Circuit to overturn a federal judge's order to cool all 104 prison units by the end of 2029. TDCJ puts the price at $1.5 billion.
Texas is going to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to fight a federal judge's order that every state prison be air-conditioned by the end of 2029. The fight pits a $1.5 billion price tag against a constitutional ruling, and it lands on lawmakers' desks just as they start writing the next state budget.
According to The Texas Tribune, the state's lawyers filed the appeal and, in an Oct. 8 filing, asked U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman to suspend his order while the appeal goes forward. FOX 4 reported the state told the court the 39-month timeline is not achievable because of old prison designs, the size of the inmate population and budget limits.
What the judge ordered
Pitman issued his final order Sept. 22. He found the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's response to extreme heat was not enough, and that conditions in uncooled units violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. He ordered all 104 facilities climate-controlled by the end of 2029, the timeline the plaintiffs asked for.
The judge found at least nine inmates died of heat in Texas prisons from 2023 to 2025. He wrote that TDCJ Director Bobby Lumpkin's failure to commit to a real plan on the timeline the agency itself said was possible amounted to "deliberate indifference."
As of Oct. 1, just over a third of the state's prisons were fully climate-controlled, leaving about 90,000 incarcerated Texans without air conditioning, the Tribune reported. FOX 4 reported TDCJ counts 38 fully air-conditioned and 53 partially air-conditioned prisons. The order also requires progress reports to the court every six months starting in March 2027, KRLD reported.
The case began in 2023 with a complaint from inmate Bernie Tiede after a heat-related medical emergency. Advocacy groups, including Texas Prisons Community Advocates, joined in 2024 to cover everyone held in an uncooled unit.
What the state says
TDCJ says it plans to cool every prison but has not set a deadline. It told the court the order would throw "chaos and confusion" into its plans and pull money from contraband detection, inmate health care and population growth. The state argues the legal bar for deliberate indifference is very hard to meet.
"Defendant does not dispute that many of TDCJ's prison units are only partially air conditioned, but even if Defendant's actions could be considered 'imperfect' in light of the realities installing air conditioning requires, imperfection is not the measure of deliberate indifference."
The agency expects 90,000 cooled beds in 2028. With the prison population expected to pass 150,000 by then, that would still leave about 60,000 inmates without air conditioning. TDCJ also disputes the judge's count of heat deaths, pointing to drug overdoses and medical conditions as other factors.
What the plaintiffs say
Erica Grossman, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the Tribune the agency should spend its money cooling prisons instead of fighting the order.
"It is still disappointing that they are spending the state's resources fighting this case rather than just installing air conditioning."
The money question
Over the summer, TDCJ told the court it expected to ask the Legislature for $774.3 million this budget cycle and $730.7 million the next. But its August budget request sought $298 million for climate control, plus $591.8 million for new cooled expansion dorms. Pitman called that gap "a concrete and obvious indication that the agency is not even attempting to following that plan."
Lumpkin also asked lawmakers to restore a 3 percent spending cut ordered by state leaders. He said losing that $287 million would mean cutting more than 1,300 jobs, close to half of them possibly correctional officers.
Texas law already requires county jails to stay between 65 and 85 degrees. Lawmakers have repeatedly declined to set the same rule for state prisons. The 90th Legislature convenes Jan. 12, 2027.
Where this leaves Texans
There are two honest points here, and they do not cancel each other out. Taxpayers are right to ask hard questions about a $1.5 billion bill and about a federal judge setting the state's construction schedule. Prisons that keep guards on the job and contraband out are a public safety matter.
But a man sentenced to prison is sentenced to lose his freedom, not to endure indoor temperatures that, as the plaintiffs argued and the judge found, can reach triple digits in summer. Scripture tells us to remember those in prison as if we were bound with them (Hebrews 13:3). The state already says it intends to cool every unit. The real dispute is how fast, and who decides. That answer will likely come from the 5th Circuit and from the Legislature in January.
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Hero photo: Holliday Unit, Huntsville, by Robert Stringer via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 2.0; cropped and resized.
