Following years of legal battles , Texas must install air conditioning in all state prisons following a judge's ruling.

The ruling released Tuesday afternoon represents what may be the end of a long, grueling saga for inmates and their advocates, who have petitioned the state for years to alleviate intolerable heat inside state prisons.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman determined that the conditions inside Texas prisons constitute a violation of inmates' Eighth Amendment rights regarding cruel and unusual punishment, and that officials have not done enough to mitigate the risk.