A U.S. District Judge has ordered the Arizona Department of Corrections to make “substantial” changes to its staffing and facility operations after determining that prison conditions represent an “unconstitutional substantial risk of serious harm” to people in the state’s custody.  Read more»

In a decade-long federal class action fight over Arizona’s prison conditions, a federal judge ruled that the state’s privatized prison system failed to provide prisoners with adequate health care and has exposed some to harsh conditions in solitary confinement. Read more»

For the second time since 2019, the Arizona Department of Corrections has been found in contempt for its failure to follow health care guidelines designed to protect prisoners. Read more»

A federal judge Wednesday fined Arizona $1.1 million for contempt stemming from its failure to comply with a 2014 settlement over the health care of inmates in the state’s prisons, the second such fine for the state since 2018. Prisoners and whistleblowers testified to nurses withholding medicine, cancer patients who were not treated, and guards who slept on the job while guarding prisoners on suicide watch. Read more»

A federal appeals court upheld a contempt order and a $1.44 million fine against the Arizona Department of Corrections this week, saying the agency has been “deliberately indifferent” to health care for inmates. Read more»

The Ninth Circuit refused to reverse a contempt order against the Arizona Department of Corrections for failing to improve a derelict prison health care system that caused needless pain and suffering and multiple inmate deaths. Read more»

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a $2.7 million award that Goodyear and its attorneys had been ordered to pay for withholding documents from a family that sued the tire maker over a crash in Arizona. Read more»

Federal courts in Arizona are still in “dire circumstances” as an emergency declaration that was supposed to help judges keep pace with a crushing caseload is set to expire. Read more»

Judge John Roll, one of the victims of the Jan. 8 shooting, was remembered Friday in a special court session. Roll, who was Arizona's chief federal judge before he was gunned down, was called "genuine" by nearly every speaker at the memorial session. Read more»

Federal judges in Arizona – and particularly in Tucson – were overburdened even before Chief U.S. District Judge John M. Roll died with five others in the shooting that severely wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. A judicial emergency declared this week is intended to provide some relief. Read more»