Judge rebuffs Arizona official, won't delay takeover of prison health system

In a new order Wednesday, Judge Roslyn Silver said there is no basis for the claims by department director Ryan Thornell that she had not weighed all the factors when deciding to appoint a receiver to ensure proper care for the 25,000 inmates in state-run facilities.

The judge detailed the issues she considered before concluding that, after 14 years of litigation filed on behalf of inmates, the physical and mental health care being provided still fails to meet constitutional standards.

Silver specifically rejected arguments that she had failed to see the improvements made since she issued an injunction in 2023 ordering the state to do better.

"It is indisputable that plaintiffs and other parties interested in the proceeding continue to be harmed by the unconstitutional health care conditions in Arizona state prisons,'' Silver wrote. "And the longer the conditions are allowed to persist, the more injury plaintiffs suffer.''

She said that reinforces her decision earlier this year to name Annette Chamber-Smith as her court-appointed receiver, giving her virtually unlimited rights to make changes in staffing and how the state spends its money. The appointment also opens the door for Chambers-Smith, the former prisons chief in Ohio, to insist Arizona spend more money to meet its constitutional obligations.

There will be at least one additional cost: Silver said the state has to pay the receiver's $500,000-a-year salary. Her appointment is for five years.

How quickly Chambers-Smith will take over the prison health system is unclear. Attorneys for Thornell already filed a notice they will seek review from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In many ways, Wednesday's order is not a surprise.

Silver has shown an increasing impatience with the progress being made by the state in meeting its obligations to provide adequate physical and mental health care. She noted not only that the case was first filed in 2012 but that the state has repeatedly promised to do better.

That has not happened, even after millions of dollars of fines, the judge said.

In 2022 she issued a 200-page list of problems, saying care remained "plainly grossly inadequate'' and that state officials were acting "with deliberate indifference'' to the substantial risk of harm to inmates. That was followed by the injunction in 2023 telling state officials what needs to be fixed, complete with specific staffing and care requirements.

Attorneys for the state argued that progress has been made since that year — when Gov. Katie Hobbs installed Thornell to run the entire prison system — and that he should be given more time before control of health care is wrested away. But they conceded they still are not meeting all the requirements of the 2023 order.

In the new order, the judge rejected arguments that the state has not been given sufficient chances to fix the system.

Silver noted that she has appointed monitors to provide ongoing information to both the lawyers for the inmates as well as for the state on what is and is not being done within the prison. There also is a history of hearings and status conferences.

The judge said she also agreed to a pilot project designed to allow state prison officials to evaluate and report to her precisely how much additional staffing is required.

The failure of all that to bring health care in the prisons up to what is legally necessary, Silver said, left her to conclude that appointing a receiver was the only action that would assure compliance with the court orders.

Silver also brushed aside arguments by Thornell's attorneys that she should delay appointing a receiver, at least in part because of the costs.

"Any harm to defendants (Thornell and the state) ... is significantly outweighed by the harm that will occur the longer the unconstitutional provision of healthcare within Arizona's prisons continues,'' she wrote.