Supreme Court clears the way for receiver to run Arizona prison healthcare

Justice Kagan rejected the state’s final bid to halt a court-ordered receivership set to begin Oct. 19 after 14 years of litigation

Official response and confirmed impact

But in an order Thursday, Justice Elena Kagan denied the department’s request.

“Arizona has spent years fighting accountability at every turn while people in its prisons continue to suffer and die from preventable causes,” Corene Kendrick, deputy director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said in a statement.

“During that time, the state has paid millions of dollars in fines and spent enormous sums litigating this case, and people in ADCRR custody pay the highest price of all.”

Incident under investigation

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Arizona corrections officials’ last-ditch attempt to delay a court-ordered takeover of the state’s unconstitutional prison healthcare system.

After facing rejections from the federal trial court judge who imposed the receivership and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

Attorneys representing around 25,000 inmates currently in state custody praised the decision, again pointing to the 14-year history of the healthcare litigation and the continued risk to incarcerated people.