Texas Prison Heat-Sensitivity Scoring System Deemed Arbitrary as Judge Awaits Ruling

Bernhardt Tiede, a 67-year-old inmate with diabetes, hypertension and obesity, experienced a stroke in a Texas prison cell where temperatures regularly topped 110 °F, prompting him to file a federal lawsuit over the lack of air-conditioning. Prior to trial, officials invoked a policy that gives priority for cooled housing to inmates 65 and older, removing Tiede from the case despite his medical vulnerabilities. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice relies on a “heat-sensitivity score”—a computer-generated metric derived from medical conditions and medications—to determine eligibility for the roughly 52,000 air-conditioned “cool beds” available, yet the judge observed that the system flags only about one-tenth of the prison population.

Autopsies of three prisoners cited extreme heat as a contributing factor to their deaths, while the department maintains that underlying health issues were the primary causes. A 2022 JAMA Network Open analysis estimated that extreme heat accounted for 13 % of deaths in un-cooled Texas prisons, a rate thirty times higher than in the general U.S. population. The state’s projected cost to fully climate-control all 101 facilities has risen to $1.5 billion, with completion not expected before 2033, and legislative attempts to mandate phased cooling have stalled. Judge Robert Pitman’s pending decision could shape whether the entire prison system must be air-conditioned by 2029.