TDCJ staff falsified Stiles Unit prison heat logs during federal lawsuit; investigation found leadership likely knew or consented

On March 21, 2025, the Texas Board of Criminal Justice made public an internal investigation finding that Texas Department of Criminal Justice staff at the Mark W. Stiles Unit in Beaumont falsified temperature logs during the summer of 2022, while the unit was the subject of federal litigation over unconstitutional prison heat conditions. Investigator Chris Cirrito, the Board's chief audit executive, found staff had "recreated" logs that were missing or defaced with doodles and stick-figure cartoons, and that some recreated readings were far off the actual temperatures: on July 31, 2022, logged temperatures at Stiles showed 58-60 degrees when the actual low that day was at least 76 degrees. A separate log showed no readings above 79 degrees in mid-July 2022 -- the same document U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman called "a fabricated document" from the bench in August 2022, more than two years before the internal investigation's findings were disclosed.

Cirrito's report concluded the falsification reflected "carelessness in record creation and/or retention" rather than an intent to deceive the court, but separately found that the Stiles Unit warden and other unit leadership "likely knew about or even consented to the falsification." TDCJ completed the investigation in November 2024 but did not disclose it for four months; the plaintiffs in the underlying heat-conditions lawsuit said the agency "sat on the report." TDCJ's attorneys acknowledged the logs were inaccurate but argued there was no intent "to mislead or deceive" the court, and that the falsification predated the lawsuit's filing.

Updates

2026-04-09 — Plaintiffs cited falsified logs as trial evidence of TDCJ concealment [2]

During closing arguments in the broader federal trial over prison air conditioning, plaintiffs' attorney Kevin Homiak cited the falsified Stiles Unit temperature logs, along with delayed autopsy reports, as evidence that TDCJ engaged in "deliberate indifference" and worked to "hide the problem from state lawmakers." U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman had not yet ruled on the underlying case as of the trial's conclusion.