Inmate at a Georgia prison dies from heat exposure after being in an outdoor cell for five hours

SEATTLE - The family of Juan Carlos Ramirez Bibiano, an inmate at Telfair State Prison in Georgia, announced a lawsuit against the state's Department of Corrections, alleging that the officers' negligent performance of their duties caused Ramirez's death.

Concretely, officers at the Telfair State Prison are accused of leaving Ramirez in an outdoor cell for five hours without water, shade or ice despite the outside temperatures climbing to 96 degrees Fahrenheit. Ramirez died of heart and lung failure as a result of heat exposure that evening.

During an early morning meeting on the day of Ramirez's death, Prison Warden Andrew McFarlane ordered department heads to keep inmates hydrated, bring them ice and avoid leaving them outside for too long in the heat, according to the lawsuit.

A prison staff member took Ramirez to an outdoor "rec cell" at around 10 a.m. and by 3 p.m., five on-site nurses rushed into the yard in response to an alert from security staff. One of the nurses said that Ramirez was "hot to the touch" and his breathing was strained.

Ramirez was taken to a local hospital where he later died of cardiopulmonary arrest brought by heat exposure, according to the complaint. His internal body temperature was recorded at 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41.7 Celsius).

According to Jeff Filipovits, one of the attorneys for Ramirez's family, the Department of Corrections reported that Ramirez died of natural causes. "The number of deaths that are occurring in custody is galling, and the absolute lawlessness inside of prisons is a humanitarian crisis," Filipovits added.

After an increase of deaths in Georgia prisons, the Department of Corrections has decided to no longer issue reports on how its inmates are dying. Starting with the March report, the GDC is now withholding monthly mortality reports that often included the initial manner of death. This decision comes as the prison system had at least nine homicides in the first quarter of 2024, according to a report by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project documented 6,182 deaths in 2020 at prisons all across the country compared to 4,240 deaths in 2019 despite a 10% drop in prison population year-to-year. The report also shows that 16 state prison systems saw their mortality rate increase at least 90% from 2019 to 2020.

A report by Prison Policy Initiative found out that hot summer days could be the cause of more deaths across the nation's prisons. Researchers found for every 10 degree increase above the prison location's mean summer temperature, nearly 5% of deaths (from all causes) occurring there could be attributed to the heat.