The executive director of the Texas prison system maintained an outwardly cool demeanor on the witness stand Tuesday as he was questioned about repeated violations of a landmark 2018 settlement agreement guaranteeing moderate indoor temperatures for hundreds of vulnerable inmates during the blistering hot summer months.

Bryan Collier, the head of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, told U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison that his staff had failed to report a breakdown in a timely fashion to opposing counsel. He also acknowledged that staffers had exposed heat sensitive inmates who were elderly and obese to dangerous heat in violation of court orders.

Hammering home how big a deal it was to expose inmates to harm akin to “Geneva code violations,” Ellison indicated he may at a later date issue fines and sanctions.

Collier said he was aware that the warden at the LeBlanc Unit had misrepresented the on-the-ground reality at the prison. The warden had told Collier that temperatures were not approaching 100 as the inmates contended. However, a test later showed the temperatures at the LeBlanc Unit exceeded the 88-degree threshold established in the agreement..

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“Should every violation be treated seriously?” asked Jeff Edwards, who represents hundreds of inmates from the mostly geriatric Pack Unit northwest of Houston.

“Yes,” Collier said. “We should have put things in place … we should not have that mistake happen again.”

Collier said the Pack Unit, where inmates filed a class action lawsuit, has not had recent problems and officials were in the process of installing equipment to monitor indoor temperatures at seven other prisons where 77 former Pack inmates have been transferred for health, security or programming reasons. The prison director said all 29 prisons with air conditioning should have capacity to monitor temperatures within the next two years.

“We have had a good track record,” Collier said. “What we failed to do was put those efforts in place (at other prisons) where we had Pack class offenders.”

At least six other wardens were on the phone poised to field questions should the judge have them, said Leah O’Leary, from the Office of the Attorney General.

O’Leary repeatedly objected to Edwards’ questions as argumentative, overly broad and beyond the scope of the lawsuit. However, Ellison allowed many of them, saying the big picture mattered because TDCJ’s credibility and truthfulness was on the line.

“When there’s been a perversion of a settlement that was an important and as heavily negotiated as this settlement was, it makes sense to find out why that perversion occureed,” the judge said.

Ellison said he was distressed it had taken this long for TDCJ to take seriously apparent violations of their legal agreement.

“I’m glad if we do in fact have the department’s attention now. I hope we continue to have their attention,” the judge said. “I’m hesitant to tell anybody how they should to their job… but the kinds of violation we’re talking about transcend an industry and transcend an office — they’re almost Geneva code violations.”

The inmates at the Pack Unit sued in 2014 — following deadly heat waves in 2011 and 2012 — claiming unmitigated heat amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Ellison agreed ruling two summers ago that the heat was “cruel and unusual.” He found it was oppressive and dangerous to people whose age, body mass, medications or medical conditions make it difficult for their bodies to regulate when the heat index rises. His 2017 injunction in the Pack case was the precursor to a 2018 agreement between the Pack inmates and the prison administrators.

Edwards, the lawyers for the Pack inmates, said what he is seeking isn’t beyond the capacity of the prisons.

“This isn’t rocket science, if they put people in air conditioning, they won’t be sanctioned,” he said. “All the need to do is put people in air conditioning like they promised.”

gabrielle.banks@chron.com