FL prisoners file federal lawsuit accusing state of “deliberate indifference” due to sweltering heat in prison cells
On October 31, the Florida Justice Institute (FJI), a nonprofit civil rights organization, filed a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) on behalf of those incarcerated at Dade Correctional Institution (Dade CI), seeking relief from the sweltering and oppressive heat that all incarcerated people must suffer through each summer. There is no air conditioning in the dormitories at Dade CI, and therefore people are forced to live in hot concrete structures with poorly ventilated air.
The Plaintiffs—Dwayne Wilson, Tyrone Harris, and Gary Wheeler—seek to represent a class of everyone incarcerated at Dade CI. They request a judge to declare the conditions unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment and order FDC to take steps to mitigate the heat, including by installing air conditioning.
Accusing the state of “deliberate indifference,” a federal lawsuit filed Thursday alleges that sweltering heat in a Miami-Dade County prison unconstitutionally violates inmates’ rights and amounts to “cruel and dangerous conditions in confinement.”
The Florida Justice Institute filed the lawsuit, which seeks certification as a class action, against the state Department of Corrections on behalf of inmates at Dade Correctional Institution in Homestead. ~ CBS News
“Holding people in concrete buildings without air conditioning is inhumane in South Florida’s summers,” said Andrew Udelsman, FJI attorney for the Plaintiffs. “The state cannot continue to incarcerate thousands of people without providing them protection from this deadly heat.”
Extreme heat is the number one weather-related killer in the United States, killing more people most years—approximately 1,300—than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined. And the situation is getting worse, as the world is experiencing dramatic rises in temperature and humidity that continue to break records. South Florida is no exception—in the 2020s, the heat index exceeds 100°F for hundreds of hours per year—triple the number from decades ago. South Florida now regularly records days with a heat index surpassing 105°F and even 110°F, which was a rarity before 1980. There is broad scientific consensus that this heating trend will continue in the upcoming decades.
In South Florida, 2023 was the hottest summer on record, shattering previous records of consecutive days exceeding a 100-degree heat index and the highest daily indexes. The year 2024 saw the hottest May and September on record, prompting the National Weather Service to issue dangerous heat advisories for Miami-Dade County throughout the summer. In Homestead, Florida—where Dade CI is located—the heat index surpassed 90°F nearly every single day from May 1 to September 30 in 2023 and 2024. In 2023, it exceeded 90℉ for half the entire summer, and on one day exceed 126°F. In 2024, it exceeded 103℉ for a full 154 hours.
“Exposure to these conditions is dangerous, even for young and healthy people,” said Dante Trevisani, FJI’s Litigation Director. “It is no longer safe to endure a South Florida summer without air conditioning.”
The case is Wilson v. Dixon, Case No. 24-cv-24253 in the Southern District of Florida.
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(Source and cover photo: Florida Justice Institute)
Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today
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