Senate president opposes Arizona prison health care ruling
Regional News
Audio By Carbonatix
11:42 AM on Tuesday, March 3
(The Center Square) - Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, pushed back against a judge’s decision to provide federal oversight of health care at the state's prisons.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver ruled in Jensen v. Thornell that the state’s prison health care system will be placed under a federal receiver, who directly answers to the court.
The Phoenix-based judge found Arizona had failed to comply with numerous court orders issued throughout the nearly 14-year legal battle. Arizona prisoners sued the state in 2012, alleging the Arizona Department of Corrections violated their Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishments and failed to provide sufficient medical and health care services.
Silver cited a 2022 court-issued order that found “overarching failures in the delivery of health care as seriously insufficient staffing [and] inappropriate use of nurses beyond the scope of their licensure.”
She also found Arizona failed “to manage complex patients or employ a differential diagnosis approach" and that conditions included "substantially inadequate mental health treatment and a deficient electronic health care record system.”
Over 100 health care positions remain unfilled throughout Arizona’s 10 prisons, the judge noted in her ruling.
“All these critical deficiencies were found to exist at every one of Defendants’ complexes, rendering the healthcare delivery systemically unconstitutional,” Silver wrote.
Petersen said, “Arizona’s prison health care system has faced real challenges, and the state has acknowledged that.”
However, he pointed out that the state has made “significant progress” in recent years “through increased staffing, expanded mental health services, and more than $1.3 billion invested to improve care.”
“The care being provided meets constitutional standards and, in many cases, meets or exceeds what many law-abiding Arizonans are able to access themselves,” Petersen said, answering The Center Square's questions by email.
“It is unreasonable for a federal judge to suggest the state must provide a higher level of care than what taxpayers can obtain on the outside,” he added.
Petersen noted these improvements should be overseen by “accountable state leadership rather than federal control.”
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver ruled in Jensen v. Thornell that the state’s prison health care system will be placed under a federal receiver, who directly answers to the court.
The Phoenix-based judge found Arizona had failed to comply with numerous court orders issued throughout the nearly 14-year legal battle. Arizona prisoners sued the state in 2012, alleging the Arizona Department of Corrections violated their Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishments and failed to provide sufficient medical and health care services.
Silver cited a 2022 court-issued order that found “overarching failures in the delivery of health care as seriously insufficient staffing [and] inappropriate use of nurses beyond the scope of their licensure.”
She also found Arizona failed “to manage complex patients or employ a differential diagnosis approach" and that conditions included "substantially inadequate mental health treatment and a deficient electronic health care record system.”
Over 100 health care positions remain unfilled throughout Arizona’s 10 prisons, the judge noted in her ruling.
“All these critical deficiencies were found to exist at every one of Defendants’ complexes, rendering the healthcare delivery systemically unconstitutional,” Silver wrote.
Petersen said, “Arizona’s prison health care system has faced real challenges, and the state has acknowledged that.”
However, he pointed out that the state has made “significant progress” in recent years “through increased staffing, expanded mental health services, and more than $1.3 billion invested to improve care.”
“The care being provided meets constitutional standards and, in many cases, meets or exceeds what many law-abiding Arizonans are able to access themselves,” Petersen said, answering The Center Square's questions by email.
“It is unreasonable for a federal judge to suggest the state must provide a higher level of care than what taxpayers can obtain on the outside,” he added.
Petersen noted these improvements should be overseen by “accountable state leadership rather than federal control.”
According to the Senate president, federal receiverships eliminate elected officials’ “decision-making authority and hands it to an unelected court appointee with broad power and no clear end date.”
“That means less transparency, less accountability and major policy decisions being made outside Arizona’s democratic process,” he explained.
Petersen said putting a federal receiver in charge of the health care system “creates the risk of significantly higher, uncapped spending, especially if the court mandates enhancements that exceed what many working families can afford for themselves.”
This federal receivership draws comparisons to the federal oversight the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department was put under in 2013 after a lawsuit found the department violated Hispanics' constitutional rights by racially profiling them.
The department remains under federal oversight, which has cost Maricopa County taxpayers $353 million.
Besides Petersen, Gov. Katie Hobbs also pushed back against the court ruling. The Democrat said she disagreed with Silver’s decision, which she described as overlooking “significant progress” the state has made in “recent years.”
“This system was in crisis for a decade, and we’ve worked tirelessly to turn things around. While progress is not achieved overnight, the improvements we’ve made in a short amount of time are undeniable,” the governor said.
Hobbs said the court decision implements “unrealistic demands and timelines that fail to account for the complexity of these challenges.”
“The best path forward is continued state investment, not federal overreach,” she noted.
The Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry announced in February it would appeal the judge’s ruling.
Department Director Ryan Thornell said if the court’s decision stands, an “exorbitantly expensive, unnecessary receiver risks disrupting the significant progress we have made in our prisons, all with no time clock on its authority.”
Petersen told The Center Square that he is “focused on supporting the current appeal and ensuring Arizona’s position is fully defended.”
When asked if he would be willing to take the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Petersen said, “Decisions about further appeals will be evaluated at that time.”
“We believe the state has strong legal arguments and should continue pursuing every appropriate legal option to restore state authority,” the Senate president explained.
