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Civil trial ordered of Texas prisons after heat deaths

Posted on by Snickering Hound

HOUSTON -- A federal judge has ordered a civil trial of the Texas prison system and its leadership in a civil rights lawsuit arising from the heat-related death of an inmate, saying state prison officials refused to provide air conditioning that could have also kept 21 other inmates alive.

Larry Gene McCollum, a 58-year-old Waco-area taxi driver, was among 22 inmates who have died from the heat in Texas prisons since 1998, including 10 during a 2011 heat wave alone, U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison of Houston wrote.

In an 83-page opinion filed Tuesday, Ellison, who visited state prisons during the peak of the summer heat, wrote that prison logs showed that the day before McCollums death, the outside air temperature was above 90 degrees for at least nine hours and above 100 degrees for at least six hours, peaking at 107 degrees and staying at 106 degrees at 6:30 p.m., when the last recording of the day was taken. Humidity never fell below 40 percent that day.

Although the log represents that the heat index at 3:30 p.m. was 116 degrees, a chart provided by the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and used by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice computes the heat index was about 150 degrees.

Larry McCollums tragic death was not simply bad luck, but an entirely preventable consequence of inadequate policies. These policies contributed to the deaths of 11 men before McCollum and 10 men after him, Ellison wrote.

The attorney for McCollums family, Jeff Edwards of Austin, said he and his clients are gratified that the facts will finally be heard by a jury and receive a full hearing. Of the 109 prisons in the Texas system, 30 are fully air-conditioned.



(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...

TOPICS:

Crime/Corruption

News/Current Events

US: Texas

KEYWORDS:

Court mandated air conditioning for Texas prison incoming...



To: Snickering Hound

Anger brewing here. I live in Texas without A/C. They sure as hell should.



by 2 posted onby Wneighbor (A pregnant woman is responsible for TWO lives, not one. (It's a wonderful "deplorable" truth))

To: Snickering Hound

I think prisons SHOULD be air conditioned. And the prisoners should be fed nothing but fatty food and ice cream all day. Furthermore, all fitness equipment and opportunities for exercise should be eliminated. When the prisoners are ultimately released (which most of them are), I’d rather they be fat, lazy, and mellow than fit, trim, and angry.



To: Snickering Hound

How on earth did people survive w/o air conditioning?/s .



To: Snickering Hound

Prison is not intended to be a 5-star hotel. Air-conditioning is less than 100 years old. It is not a Constitutional Right. That being said, buildings constructed more than 100 years ago generally had features that helped mitigate high heat. At least an effort was made — tall ceilings, breezeways, whatever. If Texas builds prisons with no thought to natural heat control, and then also does not add air-conditioning, then we are getting a little closer to willful action that can lead to death.



by 5 posted onby ClearCase_guy (Abortion is what slavery was: immoral but not illegal. Not yet.)

To: Snickering Hound

The pertinent temperature reading would be the one in the area these men were held in at the time of death. The outside temperature is only a remote reference. They know this. The 150 degree reference is solely for prejudicial purposes.



by 6 posted onby DoughtyOne (NeverTrump, a movement that was revealed to be a movement. Thank heaven we flushed!)

To: Snickering Hound

Why do convicted criminals get A/C?

If some of them croak, because of the heat, then it’s an incentive for the others to never want to return.



To: DoughtyOne

If they died from the heat, I’m guessing it was excessive.



by 8 posted onby BykrBayb (Lung cancer free since 11/9/07. Colon cancer free since 7/7/15. Obama free since 1/20/17. PTL ~ Ã)

To: ClearCase_guy

That being said, buildings constructed more than 100 years ago generally had features that helped mitigate high heat. At least an effort was made  tall ceilings, breezeways, whatever. If Texas builds prisons with no thought to natural heat control, and then also does not add air-conditioning, then we are getting a little closer to willful action that can lead to death. Prisons are built to control the movement of people so air circulation isn't a priority. Keep in mind that guards are not air conditioned either, only the wardens office is typically air conditioned and maybe the prison clinic. The Texas prison system has admitted to about 20 people dying from the heat wave in 2011 when the temperature soared above 100 day after day. That doesn't include cardiac arrests resulting from being over heated.



To: BykrBayb

A guess isn’t admissible in court.



by 10 posted onby DoughtyOne (NeverTrump, a movement that was revealed to be a movement. Thank heaven we flushed!)

To: Wneighbor

Obviously they didn’t live. They are dead. No one should be dying of heat in prisons. They don’t have to keep it meat locker fresh. But they are imprisoned and cannot help themselves and death by torture is not right.



To: Mears

How did they survive? Not all did. But you and I can take many different steps to cool ourselves that inmates can’t. They can’t even open a window. Obviously they are not faking it. They are dead.



To: DoughtyOne

That’s fine, but then, I’m not being called as a witness. Prisoners should not be pampered, but they shouldn’t be baked to death either.



by 13 posted onby BykrBayb (Lung cancer free since 11/9/07. Colon cancer free since 7/7/15. Obama free since 1/20/17. PTL ~ Ã)

To: BykrBayb

I want you to consider this. Millions of people live in the region. Hundreds of thousands of them, if not millions have no air conditioning. Did they die? Did significant portions of them die? At 45 years of age I was outside playing baseball in temperatures approaching 110 degrees. Not mentioned is whether these folks had access to water. If they did, and it’s very likely they did, they could wet their clothing to reduce their body temperature. There are variables here, and I’m not buying into the blame game until I know exactly why these people died.



by 14 posted onby DoughtyOne (NeverTrump, a movement that was revealed to be a movement. Thank heaven we flushed!)

To: DoughtyOne

Try as I might, I cannot find any inmate info for “Larry Gene McCollum, a 58-year-old Waco-area taxi driver”. I posit that as an inmate, he was not an actual taxi driver at the time of his death. CBS thus engaged in fake news right there.



To: DoughtyOne

http://www.houstonpress.com/news/as-overheated-prisoners-die-texas-jailers-to-stand-trial-over-sweltering-conditions-9202520 McCollum was put in the Hutchins unit in the summer of 2011 for writing a hot check when outdoor temperatures were between 109 and 112. Prisoners were supposed to be given ice water, however as a new prisoner he had no access to the commissary to get a cup for 30-45 days. Even prisoners with cups only got warm water. His dormitory had 2 ceiling fans and no open windows. Within a week he was found convulsing on his bunk with a body temperature of 109, still 911 wasn’t called for an hour. A court order mandating air conditioning for Texas prisons is imminent, bank on it. Florida and Alabama will be next.



To: T-Bone Texan

Inmates aren’t employed in the conventional sense. They may work in maintenance, housekeeping, the laundry, or kitchen, but they get very little pay for that unless things have changed a lot. It’s silly to mention what their career was prior to incarceration, unless you’re trying to build sympathy, a person down on their luck or some such. These reports are easy to criticize.



by 17 posted onby DoughtyOne (NeverTrump, a movement that was revealed to be a movement. Thank heaven we flushed!)

To: DoughtyOne

They died. From conditions which they were not able to escape. That is unacceptable. We have the ability to house them in conditions that don’t kill them. I get it, that they were criminals. The dregs of society. Useless eaters. But when we lock them up, we incur a responsibility for the basic safety of all the prisoners, not just the 99% who happen to be in a cooler cell, or who are strong enough to survive 150° heat index.



by 18 posted onby BykrBayb (Lung cancer free since 11/9/07. Colon cancer free since 7/7/15. Obama free since 1/20/17. PTL ~ Ã)

To: Snickering Hound

It would seem that the body temperature being noted, the prison staff was negligent in not calling the paramedics. You don’t have to have a cup to splash water on yourself. With those fans any water would have contributed to evaporative cooling. You could take your shirt off and soak it, then put it back on. In that type of heat it would have felt good, and reduced the problem significant. If there was no water access, it would have been a very bad setup.



by 19 posted onby DoughtyOne (NeverTrump, a movement that was revealed to be a movement. Thank heaven we flushed!)

To: DoughtyOne

You dont have to have a cup to splash water on yourself. With those fans any water would have contributed to evaporative cooling. You could take your shirt off and soak it, then put it back on. Outdoor temperatures were between 109 and 115, indoors was much higher. You're not evaporative cooling at those temps with just a couple fans and no open windows, you're just basting a roast.



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