1/25/2024 0 Comments Tdcj holliday iunitAnd, for the first time, the prison system established incident command centers at every unit to contend with the heat. “It’s a triumph all the way around for the state, the inmates and the lawyers, and I feel enormously lucky to have been a small part of it.”Įllison approved the settlement three months later, and prison officials rented a temporary air-conditioning system for the facility.Īside from putting in the temporary cooling at Pack, last year the state offered air-conditioned respite areas, cold showers, ice water, cooler meals and expanded access to electrolyte drinks during a brutal heat wave in July. District Judge Keith Ellison said at the time. “The case literally raised life-or-death issues,” U.S. Three years ago, Austin-based attorney Scott Medlock - one of the lawyers who represented the prisoners in the case - celebrated the possibility that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice would finally be in the position of “really having to solve the problem for everyone at the prison.”īut it still took many more months of wrangling before attorneys from both sides agreed on a settlement last February. In the course of the lawsuit, Texas prison officials admitted that nearly two dozen inmates have died of heatstroke since 1998. The legal saga began in 2014, when six prisoners at the Wallace Pack Unit filed a federal lawsuit and later won the class-action status that allowed them to sue on behalf of all 1,400-plus men at the rural lockup. ![]() “It’s only right to treat folks like they’re human.” “That’s wonderful because it’s something that’s long overdue,” said Reggie Smith, a longtime prisoner rights advocate who served time himself.
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