A judge ripped city Correction Department authorities last week for failing to provide Rikers Island inmates in solitary confinement with cooling in their cells on hot days, despite his order a decade ago to do so.
Manhattan Federal Judge Harold Baer made the remarks amid controversy over the February death of Rikers inmate Jerome Murdough, 56, who was found dead in a 101-degree jail cell.
“They are 10 years late here in getting this together,” Baer said Wednesday during a three-day hearing in a long-running class action lawsuit over heat issues. “It really seems to me that these orders were relatively clear in 2004, and I don’t think the city has actually complied with them.”
Baer ordered in 2004 that solitary confinement cells be provided with proper ventilation and cooling. Baer had found in 2001 that temperatures in the cells were putting inmates in danger and violating their constitutional rights. Now the plaintiffs in the case are asking Baer to enforce the 2004 order.
They claim the city renovated the ventilation system at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center on Rikers but continued to house the inmates without air conditioning.
The city claims Baer’s order required cooling only for particularly heat-sensitive inmates. The Correction Department “provides air-conditioned housing for all inmates in punitive segregation who have medical or mental health conditions that would make them susceptible to heat-related illnesses, consistent with our understanding of the order,” city lawyer Clarens Orsland said.
Plaintiffs’ lawyer John Boston said, “Because they are locked in nearly around the clock, they are not benefited by fans and cannot just take a cold shower.”
Baer has yet to issue a formal decision about whether the city is in violation of the order. But his remarks Wednesday suggest he agrees with the plaintiffs.
“The Murdough family is heartened to learn that Judge Baer is looking into issues surrounding the safety of inmates at Rikers Island,” said lawyer Derek Sells. “To the extent his decision may prevent another tragedy like what happened to Jerome, it would serve the interests of justice.”
The judge barred evidence of Murdough’s death from the hearing because Murdough was housed in a different type of unit, and his death was apparently caused by a heating malfunction rather than a lack of cooling.
