Texas prisons begin effort to move inmates back to overheated unit at center of lawsuit 2 weeks after settlement, prisoners being returned to the unit at center of lawsuit

Barely two weeks after reaching a settlement in a landmark lawsuit over sweltering conditions in one Navasota lockup, the Texas prison system Monday began the process of shifting vulnerable inmates back to the unit at the center of the legal claim.

In the wee hours of Monday morning, five buses moved prisoners out of the Wallace Pack Unit to make room for the returning heat-sensitive inmates transferred out months ago at a federal judge's order.

"The move closes another chapter of poor planning and lack of foresight the prison system has experienced for years," said Lance Lowry, a Huntsville corrections officer and former union president.

Though the Texas prison system agreed to install air conditioning at the unit as part of the settlement - which is expected to be finalized soon by a federal judge - that hasn't been done yet.

The 1,000-plus Pack inmates who were transferred out last August are all expected to be back on the unit by mid-April, according to state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston.

"The settlement was reached, and it's the way the system is supposed to work," he said.

There's no concrete time line available on how soon those transfers will take place, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark.

Earlier this month, TDCJ agreed to provide air conditioning at the geriatric prison, a move that would end the pending class-action lawsuit as well as the legal claims involving inmates who died or were injured by excessive heat during sweltering summers in other state lockups.

The department admitted in court documents that 22 inmates have died from heat stroke in Texas prisons over the past two decades.

After word of the settlement went public, rumors of impending transfers began circulating among the inmate population, according to one woman whose son was held at the Pack Unit.

'Not feeling good about it'

"They're not feeling good about it, I'll tell you that," she said. She asked not to be named for fear her son might face retaliation, something she says has already become a widespread concern.

"No doubt there's going to be a lot of that type of thing going on," she said.

Some prisoners embroiled in the litigation have hoped to opt out, she said, due to concerns that involvement in the legal case would decrease their chances of getting into certain programs TDCJ offers.

The class-action suit was filed in 2014, and after three years of legal wrangling, U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison ruled in July that the indoor heat was life-threatening for vulnerable inmates, penning a scathing opinion deeming the summer conditions "cruel and unusual punishment."

Lasting ramifications

He ordered the prison to provide cool housing units during the summer for medically sensitive inmates, but he gave TDCJ officials the flexibility to fulfill his order as they saw fit.

But given the high cost of cooling the units, officials instead opted to ship more than 1,000 inmates from the Pack Unit to prisons that already had air conditioning.

Yet Ellison's ruling was only temporary, so the case was slotted for trial in March - until the early February settlement rendered it unnecessary.

If Ellison approves the settlement, it could have lasting ramifications at the state's more than 100 prisons, most of which do not have air conditioning.