Professor White Comments on Prisoners’ Class-Action Suit for Houston Chronicle

Professor Carter White, Director of the UC Davis School of Law Civil Rights Clinic, commented for the Houston Chronicle on a class-action suit filed by Texas prison inmates alleging that the state’s failure to provide adequate cooling systems to deal with extreme heat amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Heat-related deaths have claimed 22 inmates in Texas since 1998, the Chronicle reports.

"When people get sentenced to time in prison, it's not a death sentence," White said. "They're supposed to be housed in humane conditions that don't cause these heat-related illnesses."