No A/C for death row inmates at Angola, appeals court rules

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Death row inmates at Louisiana State Penitentiary have lost their latest legal battle for relief from triple-digit temperatures inside their cells at Angola.

The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Wednesday (July 8) against three inmates who argued the sweltering conditions violated the Eighth Amendment.

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The ruling explained, however, that there are "many acceptable remedies short of (death row) facility-wide air conditioning." Examples of other remedies cited in the ruling include access to cool showers and personal supplies of ice and cold drinking water.

The death row inmates originally filed the lawsuit against the state in 2013, saying the conditions were unconstitutional. The suit alleged that heat indices, or measurements of how hot it feels, on death row had reached 172 degrees in 2012 and 195 degrees in 2011. Evidence presented in court in 2013, based on heat indices measured from July 15 to Aug. 5 of that year, indicated the heat index maxed out 108 degrees.

"I feel like I'm on fire or something," one of the plaintiffs in the case, death row inmate Nathaniel Code, 57, testified in August 2013. "I mostly just try to be as still as possible."

The other death row plaintiffs are Elzie Ball, 60; James Magee, 35. All three have medical conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension, that can be exacerbated by high heat.

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