By Ashley Miznazi | October 31, 2024
Miami Herald
South Florida temperatures soared to record highs over the last few summers — and so did the toll on more than 1,300 people incarcerated in a sweltering men’s state prison not far from Everglades National Park, according to a new lawsuit.
Many men at the Miami-Dade Correctional Institute, an aging complex lacking air conditioning in housing areas, suffered from heat rash, there were reports of fainting and at least four deaths that attorneys for The Florida Justice Institute argue were likely the result of the heat.
“People are cooking in this prison and instead of addressing these conditions, the Florida Department of Corrections is letting people suffocate,” said Andrew Udelsman, the lawyer on a case filed in Miami federal court on Thursday morning. “These men did not receive death sentences.”
The Miami-based non-profit organization, which champions reforms for the incarcerated, homeless, disabled and other disenfranchised groups, says it filed the lawsuit with the intent of protecting the prison’s residents from extreme heat. The main ask: That the prison keeps temperatures inside the facility below 88 degrees.
The Florida Department of Corrections said they do not comment on pending litigation. The Florida Justice Institute provided The Herald a copy of the suit prior to its formal filing.
HOTTER INSIDE THAN OUT
The lawsuit describes several deaths that attorneys believe were heat-related. On July 3, 2023, Miami’s heat index was a dangerous 92 degrees outside, according to the suit, and it was even hotter inside the cement prison without working air vents sucking out the stale air. A 74-year-old with hypertension – identified only as C.G. in the lawsuit – slept in a room crowded with 80 other men in bunk beds.
That morning, he was described by prisoners to Udelsman as, “profusely sweating and confused.”
As the sun rose, C.G. got worse. Some of his last words that morning, the lawyer said, were “Man, it’s so hot in here.” He died around 8 a.m. that day. At 74, C.G was one of the older incarcerated men in Dade Correctional. More than half of the prisoners are over 50 and 24% of them are over 65.
The plaintiffs in the case, Dwayne Wilson, 66, Tyrone Harris, 54, and Gary Wheeler, 65, are also all on medications for conditions such as hypertension, depression and epilepsy which experts say make them more sensitive to the heat.
The lawsuit details sweatbox conditions:
Inside the 80-man dorm rooms, there are a few fans near the walls that recycle the air inside the dorms. The fans don’t reach the center of the room where many beds are, and when temperatures raise over 90 degrees, the EPA says fans are ineffective and can do more harm than good. The duct work is filled with dust and dirt and is rusted to disrepair in some places and many vents are boarded up with wood and metal.
Prisoners are left with few options for respite from the brutal heat, according to the suit. While most men get shower access a few times weekly, there is no knob to change the temperature which is set to warm or hot.
One man said he found a reprieve in giving himself a “bird bath” by splashing himself with toilet water, Udelsman said. Some of the prisoners also described dampening their sheets with water to sleep on the concrete floor at night. Another man, whose initials are G.M., said being confined to a cell during the hottest times of the day felt like, “being locked in a sardine can with no air to breathe.”
The main form of relief comes from cups of ice brought in a cooler by the guards, but it’s not always offered and the lawsuit says there’s not enough to go around.
If there’s a rainstorm, things get worse. The drains on the floor of the two-man cells get backed up and spew out a combination of sewage and rainwater. The water eventually evaporates since it’s so hot and as a result, the lawsuit says the rooms are covered in black mold.
THE ‘HELL DORM’
Conditions are even worse in what residents call the “hell dorm.” Sheets of solid metal cover what would be window holes, and on one scorching hot day this summer, the lawsuit said the vents weren’t working.
According to the suit, on September 24, 2024, an 81-year-old man identified as J.B. staying in the dorm, was having trouble breathing. Because he used a wheelchair, he was assigned to be alone in the cell. There was a heat advisory in place, and the heat index was above 104 degrees.
After screaming out for help, he was taken to the air conditioned infirmary for a breathing treatment but then returned to his hot cell afterwards. That morning, J.B. wasn’t at breakfast. Prisoners went into his stifling cell and said they found him dead with his mouth gaping open — like he was taking his last breath.
The FDC does not keep track of heat deaths. Instead, deaths are recorded as homicide, suicide, accident or natural death. A heat stroke would most likely be categorized by the FDC as a “natural” death, Udelsman said.
The Herald reviewed the autopsies and medical reports of the men listed in the lawsuit. None explicitly mentioned the heat, although it has been a regular complaint from prisoners.
Udelsman said incarcerated people at Dade Correctional have filled dozens, if not hundreds, of official paper-written grievances with the Florida Department of Corrections over broken ventilation starting in 2019, with one of the latest being after June 2024. The response that they always receive, Udelsman said, is that the ventilation systems are working properly, and they were last tested in December 2022.
There are a few air-conditioned areas in the prison. The guards’ offices, library, infirmary, law center, visitor room and inpatient healthcare unit have AC but prisoners are lucky to have a few hours a week of access to one of these spaces.
MODELING AFTER TEXAS’ SUCCESS
This won’t be the first time incarcerated men in Florida tried to get protections from extreme heat. Death row occupants in Raiford filed a lawsuit in 2000 against Florida prison officials citing cruel and unusual punishment.
The suit failed, and the court ultimately determined the prison was, “operating within the range of design parameters.” The decision essentially spelled out that mere discomfort in high temperatures wasn’t cruel and unusual punishment.
Udelsman believes the evidence they have against Dade Correctional goes beyond discomfort.
“We are not saying this heat is uncomfortable, we are saying the heat is deadly,” Udelsman said.
In October 2023, Republican State Senator Jennifer Bradley said during a Florida Senate appropriations meeting, “when you are in the facility, and you visit a dorm that does not have air conditioning, and you look at the guards tasked with maintaining security in those places, it is absolutely oppressive.”
She said Florida needed to mitigate the heat or they would be on the, “receiving end of a lawsuit and it’ll be a lot more expensive” and that it was “concerning” the FDC did track temperatures inside of the prison.
And it’s not just South Florida. Statewide 75% of prisons do not have AC. Ricky Dixon, the Secretary of the FDC, said during the same senate meeting his primary concern was heat’s impact on staff who’d rather work in cool conditions. He said the heat exacerbates bad behavior from both staff and prisoners.
There have been successful suits for cooler conditions in other states. In 2018, a judge ordered that a Texas prison’s sweltering conditions amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The Texas Tribune reported the state prison system settled after a $7M legal fight to have one housing area in the Wallace Pack prison southeast of College Station no hotter than 88 degrees heat index.
“This is what we want,” Udelsman said. “You cannot detain people in South Florida with these kind of heat indexes that we’re regularly seeing now without climate control.”