As Texas moves to install air conditioning in all of its prisons by 2033, a federal judge who raised constitutional concerns about triple-digit temperatures pummeling inmates will decide whether to hold the state to that timeline even though it currently lacks funding to pull it off.
A bench trial beginning Monday in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas will analyze the state’s $1.3 billion plan to cool all prison facilities following heat-related deaths of at least two dozen inmates and illnesses of hundreds more.
The trial, scheduled to last two weeks in Austin, is the most significant event in a yearslong effort by criminal justice advocates to protect inmates from increasingly hot conditions. They say the situation can only be resolved by installing air conditioning across the entire system. The state agrees but hasn’t delegated the funds to accomplish it. And no one agrees on how quickly it can be accomplished.
Currently, the prison system has 52,438 air-conditioned beds, with another 31,506 under construction or in procurement. But once those are completed, about 40% of inmates will still be in cells without AC, raising questions from the plaintiffs on whether the state can secure more money needed to complete the entire project.
US District Judge Robert Pitman previously said that even though the legislature hasn’t fully funded a solution, the state can’t assert lack of resources as a viable defense to the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment. However, Pitman denied granting a preliminary injunction in March 2025, reasoning the money the state would need for a short-term cooling solution would be better used to save up for a permanent fix.
“The definition of indifference is knowing the solution to a problem that is killing people and deliberately choosing not to solve it,” said Jeff Edwards, of Austin, Texas, who is a member of the legal team representing inmate rights groups that sued the state. They’re asking the federal court to order the Texas Department of Criminal Justice “to air condition its prisons before more inmates and officers suffer or die.”
30 Years Away
Nearly two-dozen inmates died from extreme heat between 1998 and 2012, according to the state, but Pitman said the total is likely higher. A 2022 epidemiologist study concluded there were 271 deaths attributable to extreme heat in Texas prisons without air conditioning from 2001 to 2019—an average of 14 a year. Yet, a doctor expected to testify as a plaintiff witness said that’s also an underestimate because it doesn’t account for heat’s exacerbation of underlying illnesses.
The inmate groups are asking Pitman to hold the state to a firm timeline, saying that based on the project’s current pace the prison system won’t be fully air conditioned until nearly 30 years from now.
Although inmates secured a 2018 settlement that required the state to air condition one notoriously hot unit that housed the elderly, groups are now asking Pitman for an order that would cover all of the state’s 100-plus prison units. In total, roughly 135,000 individuals are incarcerated in Texas’ prison system.
“In light of inadequate state laws and agency protocols to properly protect individuals in TDCJ’s custody, this lawsuit is crucial,” said Kirsten Budwine, policy attorney for Texas Civil Rights Project.
Since 1994, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards has required all county jails in the state to maintain indoor temperatures between 65 degrees and 85 degrees. There is no such standard for prisons.
Bernhardt Tiede, a former plaintiff who initiated the 2023 lawsuit, said he suffered from a stroke after facing temperatures that exceeded 110 degrees. Earlier this month, Pitman granted the state’s motion to dismiss Tiede’s claims because, upon turning 65, he qualified for an air conditioned bed.
Still, Pitman allowed the case to move to trial with the other plaintiffs to decide whether the state’s project is moving forward with reasonable sincerity or if it’s “so inadequate as to constitute deliberate indifference.”
$1.1 Billion Gap
For the state’s part, it’s asking Pitman to stand down because it says cooler conditions are coming. Bryan Collier, former head of the state’s criminal justice department, testified that it’s “absolutely” the state’s goal to add air conditioning in the entire prison system—and only time and money are standing in the way from it happening right now.
In 2022, Collier presented the legislature with a four-phase plan to install air conditioning across the entire prison system. A year later lawmakers marked $85.7 million for that purpose, the first time they had done so. Still, it was less than half of the $225 million needed for the first phase alone. Last year, lawmakers tacked on another $118 million for new air conditioning, reducing the gap to complete the project to about $1.1 billion. But, during that same session, they failed to pass a bill that would’ve required AC units in every facility.
“If anything, a ruling in this case could catalyze even more funding for ACs in prisons,” said Luis Soberon, senior policy advisor for Texas 2036, a nonpartisan think tank pushing for cooler prison temperatures.
In court filings, TDCJ—the state agency that operates the prison system—says it anticipates getting another $620 million when the legislature meets again next year. That amount would be sufficient to stay on pace to air condition the entire system by 2033, it says.
The department, whose director Bobby Lumpkin is the lone defendant in the case, declined to comment on the trial. It will be represented in court by the Texas Attorney General’s office.
The plaintiffs are also represented by Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell LLP, Holland, Holland Edwards & Grossman LLC, Jodi Cole of Alpine, Texas, and O’Melveny & Myers LLP.
The case is Texas Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants, Inc. v. Lumpkin, W.D. Tex., No. 1:23-cv-01004, 3/30/26.
