At least 41 people have died in the Lone Star State’s unairconditioned prisons due to heat-related or unknown conditions this summer, according to the Texas Tribune.
Even so, it’s hard to firmly establish how many have succumbed to heat-related illness, according to observers. That’s because TDCJ’s official stance is that no inmates have died of heat exhaustion since 2012 — the same year the agency began to be bombarded with wrongful death lawsuits from inmates’ families, the Tribune reports.
But if they were supposed to die there, then they would have been sentenced to death by heat exhaustion. Which I’m pretty sure would be considered cruel and unusual.
I don’t think it’s fair to just tack on additional punishment after sentencing.