Current and former heads of Texas’ prison system defended asking for lesser amounts to air-condition facilities during a federal trial on extreme heat in TDCJ facilities.
To cool the state’s entire prison system, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has said it would cost more than $1 billion. But so far, TDCJ has not asked the Legislature for the full funding, even as more than 80,000 inmates in its facilities endure the scorching summer months without air-conditioning.
On Tuesday, former and current TDCJ leaders testified during the second day of a federal trial over insufficient air-conditioning in Texas prisons that the department has asked for smaller amounts in order to build and maintain credibility with lawmakers. These requests depend on what officials think TDCJ could achieve regarding the design and installation of air conditioning within the next two fiscal years, while also considering “competing priorities” such as health care and food, they added.
“We did what we said we would do with it,” said Bryan Collier, who retired from TDCJ’s lead role in August after nine years on the job.
Bobby Lumpkin, who took over the position, echoed his predecessor’s sentiment a few hours later: “We have to be good fiscal stewards.” He also confirmed that the cost estimate to fully air-condition Texas prisons has climbed to $1.5 billion.
The ongoing trial over the issue of extreme heat in TDCJ facilities comes a year after a March 2025 ruling from U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman that said housing Texas prison inmates in sweltering facilities that lack air conditioning is “plainly unconstitutional.” But the Obama appointee declined at the time to force TDCJ to immediately install temporary or permanent air conditioning. The judge instead pushed the plaintiffs — who are asking for the entire prison system to be air-conditioned by the end of 2029, along with measurable milestones during that period — toward a trial.
“TDCJ still refuses to treat this as an emergency,” attorney Kevin Homiak said Monday in the opening statement for the plaintiffs, which include several organizations advocating for those in prisons.
Wade Johnson, an attorney defending TDCJ, countered that the agency is ramping up audits, mitigation efforts and the addition of cool beds. He also said the plaintiffs’ claim of deliberate indifference is an “extremely high standard to meet.”
‘All it takes is money’
Throughout the lawsuit, costs have emerged as a major issue in adding air conditioning to state prisons.
Collier previously said he wanted to install air conditioning in every prison but he simply didn’t have the funds to do so. But TDCJ could be more aggressive in pushing for that funding, the plaintiffs argued.
“It’s a lot and it’s expensive, but all it takes is money,” Jeff Edwards, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the Texas Tribune at the start of the trial. “And so if you don’t ask for the money, you’re never going to get it.”
On Tuesday, Edwards pushed Lumpkin to say whether he could commit to asking for the necessary funding without a court order, and whether the department is obligated to follow the U.S. Constitution and not subject those in prison to cruel and unusual punishment in the form of extreme heat.
TDCJ can seek out the amount that it could “operationalize,” along with other “competing priorities,” Lumpkin repeatedly replied. He added that the department has not yet done the appropriations request for the next legislative session in 2027.
At the same time, the Texas Legislature has repeatedly failed to pass any legislation requiring air conditioning in all Texas prisons, while providing a fraction of the cost estimate. For instance, lawmakers provided $118 million in 2025 for air conditioning installment, which the department said would help bring the total number of cool beds to more than 80,000.
But this figure would still leave a significant chunk of people currently in the department’s facilities without sufficient air conditioning. TDCJ’s population is also projected to grow over the next few years.
Alleged heat-related deaths
Amid the technical questions, the trial has also featured discussions about the human toll of extreme heat.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys presented that there were allegedly five heat-related deaths over the last two summers in Texas prisons. TDCJ did not report them to the state Legislature, as the department has not publicly acknowledged heat as a significant factor in these deaths.
Three of the suspected heat-related deaths took place between June and August 2024, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys. The other two alleged cases happened in July and August 2025. In all of these cases, the plaintiffs’ attorneys showed that there were sweltering heat indexes near the time of their death, including some that reached well into the triple digits.
The state’s attorneys argued that they could be attributed to other issues instead, such as drug toxicity.
Some of the alleged heat-related deaths also didn’t have a recorded body temperature — a gap that the plaintiffs’ experts say TDCJ must address in order to fully understand their deaths.
“How can you have a medical examiner give you the right opinion [about] the cause of death when that medical examiner doesn’t know the body temperature?” Susi Vassallo, a medical toxicology specialist, said Monday.
According to a TDCJ policy shown during the Tuesday hearing, medical providers are encouraged to take body temperatures, but they are not required to do so. Collier and Lumpkin then repeatedly said during their testimonies that they would not want to interfere with medical decisions because they are not experts in this area.
Source: Alex Nguyen,
Photo Credit: The Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Polunsky Unit in Livingston. Mark Felix for the Texas Tribune
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