Arizona officials ask U.S. Supreme Court to stop federal take over of prison health system

State officials are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block the takeover of the prison health system by a court-appointed receiver.

In 2023, U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver ordered the health system be overhauled to correct what the judge said are constitutional deficiencies.

In a new filing Wednesday, attorneys for Ryan Thornell, director of the Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry, said the prison system has made "tangible progress” in improving physical and mental healthcare for inmates.

That includes doubling the amount spent providing care, adding staffers, improving facilities and increased access to substance-use disorder treatment.

But the lawyers told the justices that none of that convinced Silver who concluded earlier this year that the system that is supposed to provide care for 25,000 inmates still is not meeting its legal obligations.

The judge at that time tapped Annette Chambers-Smith, the former Ohio corrections director, to take control of the system, with the right to hire and fire staffers, terminate contracts and, with court permission, order the state to spend more. And after a federal appeals court refused to set aside her order, Silver last week said Chambers-Smith will take over on Oct. 19.

That leaves only the nation's high court as the only entity that can keep that from happening.

Much of what is in Wednesday's filing is a repeat of what attorneys for the state argued already, first to Silver and, more recently, to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That includes the state's claim of improvements made in the past three years.

Silver, however, questioned the rate of progress. She pointed out that the case has been going on since 2012, with state officials repeatedly promising to do better.

The state's lawyers do not dispute that Arizona prisons are not yet meeting the legal standards for care. But they said that Silver should impose some sanction short of wresting control of the prison system.

And, in seeking high court intervention, they are telling the justices they should consider carefully the act of giving critical functions of a prison system into private hands — particularly while they pursue an appeal of the judge's original order.

It will be up to Justice Elena Kagan, who handles such special requests on the court's shadow docket, to decide whether to ask lawyers for the inmates to respond or leave that question to the full court.