{"id":15241555,"date":"2026-08-04T19:39:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T23:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/arizona-says-judge-turned-to-last-resort-fix-for-prison-healthcare-too-soon\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T20:33:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T00:33:43","slug":"arizona-says-judge-turned-to-last-resort-fix-for-prison-healthcare-too-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/arizona-says-judge-turned-to-last-resort-fix-for-prison-healthcare-too-soon\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona says judge turned to \u2018last resort\u2019 fix for prison healthcare too soon"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"749\" src=\"https:\/\/azmirror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/corrections-dept-1024x749.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" \/><figcaption>\n<p style=\"font-size:12px\">Photo by Matthew Hendley | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/110301031@N02\/11587996374\">Flickr<\/a>\/<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0\/\">CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Hobbs administration says a federal judge went for the nuclear option too soon when she turned over control of the state\u2019s prison healthcare system to a receiver without exhausting other remedies in a lawsuit that has dragged on for 14 years, and is asking the judge to pause doing so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cJumping from the current tools that are yielding measurable results to the Receivership Order\u2019s \u2018remedy of last resort,\u2019 before employing any intermediate measures, is an abuse of discretion,\u201d Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry attorney Mary O\u2019Grady wrote in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.azd.687548\/gov.uscourts.azd.687548.5326.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">a brief<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> aiming to persuade Judge Roslyn Silver to issue a stay on <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/azmirror.com\/2026\/07\/17\/judge-hands-ohios-former-prisons-chief-sweeping-control-over-arizona-prison-healthcare\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">her July order appointing Annette Chambers-Smith<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to oversee the system.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since ruling in 2022 that the healthcare system in Arizona prisons is so substandard that it amounts to a violation of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/constitution.congress.gov\/constitution\/amendment-8\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eighth Amendment rights<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of inmates, the state has only had about three years to comply with the terms of an injunction that the Corrections Department and the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit agreed to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cSince it made its constitutional findings, the Court has not attempted to improve compliance through any intermediate measures, such as remedial plans or sanctions,\u201d O\u2019Grady argued.<\/span><\/p>\n<aside>        <a href=\"https:\/\/azmirror.com\/subscribe\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" aria-label=\"Get the morning headlines delivered to your inbox.\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"subscribeShortcodeContainer\">\n<div class=\"subscribeTextContainer\">\n                <i class=\"fas fa-envelope\"><\/i><\/p>\n<p>GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"subscribeButtonContainer\">\n<div>SUBSCRIBE<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>        <\/a><br \/>\n        <\/aside>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In July, Silver appointed Chambers-Smith and granted her the sole power to determine what the state needs to do to stop violating the constitutional rights of inmates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU Foundation of Arizona and Prison Law Office, said it is \u201coutrageous\u201d that the Department of Corrections would argue that the court skipped steps and that its legal position effectively attempts to hand-wave away the myriad failures of the system that were documented prior to the 2022 injunction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Prior to that injunction, Prison Law Office <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.azd.687548\/gov.uscourts.azd.687548.5325.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">attorney Sophie Hart wrote<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the court did escalate its attempts to bring the state into compliance through fines, contempt orders, expert evaluations and a trial. Ultimately, she argued, the injunction \u201cdid not fundamentally alter what the Department is required to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Silver, Hart noted, has previously rejected the state\u2019s attempt to reframe evaluation of its compliance by ignoring what happened before 2022 as a \u201cprofound misunderstanding of the law and facts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The class-action lawsuit stretches back to 2012, when prisoners sued the department and alleged that its shoddy health care violated their Eighth Amendment right against \u201ccruel and unusual punishment.\u201d The 14 years since have been marked by escalating judicial intervention, culminating in Silver ordering the prison health care system into receivership.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2014, the prisoners and the state reached a 103-point agreement on health care performance. But when the Corrections Department repeatedly failed to comply with those standards, the court twice held the agency in contempt and levied fines totaling more than $2.5 million.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Following a 15-day bench trial in 2022, the court issued a 200-page order declaring the health care system \u201cpervasively and systemically unconstitutional.\u201d The next year, a permanent injunction was issued with specific \u201cquality indicators\u201d to assess how the prison system was complying with the court\u2019s directives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2024 and 2025, Silver wrote, the state repeatedly and flagrantly violated those orders, and a pilot program aimed at testing a new model for prison health care failed disastrously \u2014 it was only partially implemented at one of the two test sites, and was only in place for eight days before it was scrapped.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe Court\u2019s patience has run out. Too many individuals are needlessly suffering while Defendants have deployed many delay tactics,\u201d Silver wrote in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/azmirror.com\/2026\/02\/20\/judge-seizes-control-of-arizonas-prison-health-care-after-14-years-of-failures\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">a February order<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> placing the healthcare system into receivership. \u201cThe Court has exercised restraint for much of this litigation, to the point that anymore tolerance of unconstitutional healthcare becomes judicial indulgence.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the Corrections Department says that Silver asked the wrong question. Instead of focusing on whether the department has complied with the injunction, she should have asked whether a receiver is the only way to achieve compliance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWill a receivership achieve compliance more quickly and efficiently than the remedies already in place? Plaintiffs\u2019 opposition elides that question,\u201d <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.azd.687548\/gov.uscourts.azd.687548.5315.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">O\u2019Grady argued<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The plaintiffs, who asked Silver to appoint a receiver, said that, after nearly 15 years of litigation and ongoing failures of the healthcare system \u2014 including documented deaths as a result \u2014 the answer to either question leads to the same result: The state has consistently refused to do what it has been ordered to do and has proven it won\u2019t take the steps needed to comply.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The crux of the Corrections Department\u2019s argument is that allowing the receiver to take the reins now, while the state appeals the receivership order, results in irreparable harm and violates the principles of federalism by stripping the state of its inherent authority.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While the plaintiffs have argued that $2.2 million in contempt fines can be used to pay for the receiver during the appeal, the Department of Corrections noted that the costs are likely to far exceed that. O\u2019Grady pointed to California, where a judge put its prison healthcare system into receivership more than 20 years ago, which spent more than $180 million on its receiver in the first five years, ranging from $11 million to $93 million in a single year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And on top of that, the state argued, using the contempt fines to pay for the receiver would actually create irreparable harm because those fines were designed to be coercive and the Corrections Department can still recover them through compliance. But if that money gets spent on a receiver, that ability goes away if the appeals court reverses Silver\u2019s order.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">O\u2019Grady also argued that Silver also irreparably harms Arizona\u2019s authority because \u201crather than temporarily enjoining state officials from enforcing their enacted policies, the receivership displaces the officials\u2019 authority altogether.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAny time a State is enjoined by a court from effectuating statutes\u2026 it suffers a form of irreparable injury,\u201d she wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There\u2019s also the broader issue of the money needed to comply with the litigation. Although Gov. Katie Hobbs initially proposed more than $118 million in new funding for compliance, but the final budget she negotiated with the Republicans who control the state legislature provides only about a third of that \u2014 and $45 million of that money is contingent on the Corrections Department and its private healthcare vendor, NaphCare, signing a contract amendment with automatic penalties for persistent job vacancies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That amendment is not yet in place, but an ADCRR spokesman told the Arizona Mirror that the agency is \u201ccurrently working through the contract amendment process\u201d with NaphCare.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Department of Corrections also said that Silver relied too heavily on inmate deaths due to poor medical care.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cEvaluating a system serving 25,000 patients by reference to its worst outcomes will inevitably overstate systemwide risk,\u201d O\u2019Grady argued. \u201cIf that method were sound, any time inadequate medical care is provided in a correctional setting, the entire corrections system would be exposed to court-managed institutional reform.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Hart countered that the court\u2019s methodology went far beyond merely the documented deaths, and it was based on the state\u2019s own self-reported compliance data.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cDefendants do not dispute this evidence. Instead, they take aim at this Court&#8217;s analysis,\u201d she wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n<aside>        <a href=\"https:\/\/azmirror.com\/donate\/?oa_referrer=midstorybox\" style=\"text-decoration:none\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"donateContainer\">\n<div class=\"donateTextContainer\">\n<p>YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"donateButtonContainer\">\n<div>SUPPORT<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>        <\/a><br \/>\n        <\/aside>\n<p class=\"inmi-source\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/azmirror.com\/2026\/08\/04\/arizona-says-judge-turned-to-last-resort-fix-for-prison-healthcare-too-soon\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">News \u2013 World \u2013 Phoenix \u2013 rss.app2 \u2192 manual entry<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Hobbs administration says a federal judge went for the nuclear option too soon when she turned over control of the state\u2019s prison healthcare system to a receiver without exhausting other remedies in a lawsuit that has dragged on for\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15241557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15241555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phoenix"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1.jpg",1024,749,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1-300x219.jpg",300,219,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1-620x453.jpg",620,453,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1-768x562.jpg",768,562,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1-940x688.jpg",940,688,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1.jpg",1024,749,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1.jpg",1024,749,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1-998x665.jpg",998,665,true],"ignition_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1-670x446.jpg",670,446,true],"ignition_item_lg":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1.jpg",1024,749,false],"ignition_article_media":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1-510x510.jpg",510,510,true],"ignition_minicart_item":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1-160x160.jpg",160,160,true],"profile_24":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1-24x24.jpg",24,24,true],"profile_48":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1-48x48.jpg",48,48,true],"profile_96":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1-96x96.jpg",96,96,true],"profile_150":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"profile_300":["https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15241555-corrections-dept-1024x749-1-300x300.jpg",300,300,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"news.iNthacity","author_link":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/author\/atombo\/"},"category_info":"<a 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tag\">Phoenix<\/a>","tag_info":"Phoenix","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15241555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15241555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15241555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15241556,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15241555\/revisions\/15241556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15241557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15241555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15241555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inthacity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15241555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}