Lawsuit alleges uncooled prison vehicle endangered lives

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — An watchdog group on prison conditions says a 61-year-old inmate in southern New Mexico was severely dehydrated and endangered when transported in a sweltering van without air conditioning in the summer.

The New Mexico Prison & Jail Project announced Monday a lawsuit against the New Mexico Corrections Department and two of its officers on behalf of an inmate who was confined for several hours to a van with no air conditioning on a summer day in 2019.

The suit says several inmates had been evacuated from a broken-down prison transport vehicle into another van with no functioning air conditioning.

Complaints by inmates of extreme heat in the back of the transport vehicle were ignored, the lawsuit states. It says inmate Lawrence Lamb became severely dehydrated during the ensuing journey and experienced emotional distress.

“Lawrence thought he was going to die,” said Adam Baker, an attorney partnering with New Mexico Prison & Jail Project. “You can’t put someone into an enclosed metal box in the middle of summer in New Mexico, for hours on end, without air-conditioning. Everyone knows that’s dangerous.”

A spokesman for the Corrections Department declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.

“The well-being and safety of the inmate population continues to be” a department priority, agency spokesman Eric Harrison said in a statement.

In the aftermath of a similar 2012 incident, former New Mexico prison inmate Isaha Casias was awarded $2 million through a federal lawsuit after being left in a hot van outside the State Penitentiary in Santa Fe.

The attorney for Casias in that lawsuit, Matthew Coyte, is a steering committee member for the New Mexico Prison & Jail Project.

Project Director Steven Robert Allen said it was disturbing to see the Corrections Department endanger inmates again in a hot vehicle.

“You would think the Department would have heard the wake-up call following the Casias verdict,” he said in a news release.