Thread by @JimmyJenkins

BREAKING: Citing "pervasive material breaches" of Arizona's prison health care class action settlement by the state, Judge Roslyn Silver has ordered the Department of Corrections and prisoner attorneys to prepare for a trial to be held no later than November 1st, 2021

Judge Silver: "Over the past six years, Defendants have consistently failed to meet many of the Stipulation’s critical benchmarks. Beyond these failures, Defendants have in the past six years proffered erroneous and unreliable excuses for non-performance . . .

asserted baseless legal arguments, and in essence resisted complying with the obligations they contractually knowingly and voluntarily assumed. The Court has repeatedly used the remedies authorized by the Stipulation and often exercised forbearance rather than imposing sanctions.

The remedies and tolerance by the Court have proven ineffective. Prisoners are not entitled to 'unqualified access to health care.' But they are entitled to 'adequate medical care.' Courts should not be engaged in running prisons. The present situation must end."

This is incredible - Judge Silver has rescinded the Parsons v Shinn settlement - Arizona prison health care is going on trial in federal court this fall

"What follows are findings of fact regarding Defendants’ failure to perform their obligations and the numerous efforts to enforce compliance" - Reader, there are 37 pages in this order

So most of this is basically "Look Arizona, the federal court gave you several years to get your act together before we even fined you the first time, and you still screwed up in almost every way possible - you didn't live up the agreements you made"

Throwback to March, 2017, when a DOC psychologist admitted in court they weren't providing accurate monitoring numbers related to the settlement

Judge Silver points out the history of consistent understaffing by the private prison health care contractors hired by the state

Judge Silver brings up the February 2018 evidentiary hearing ***prompted by exclusive @kjzzphoenix reporting*** she cites whistleblower testimony by Dr. Jan Watson and the emails KJZZ published showing Corizon officials were purposefully evading the court monitoring process

Here's our reporting cited in Judge Silver's order today that prompted a 2-week evidentiary hearing in federal court in 2018: kjzz.org/content/572976…

Wow this entire summary of Dr. Watson's experience working in the prisons was first reported by KJZZ and then repeated under oath in federal court and now it is being used as justification to toss the settlement!

Former DOC Director Ryan gets a shoutout for being a poor steward of tax payer money - Judge Silver cites Ryan's unfathomable explanation that putting a cap on performance sanctions against its prison health care contractor was a "smart business decision"

Shoutouts for Angela Fischer (mental health clinician) and Cecelia Edwards (Corizon adminstrator), who both blew the whistle on DOC/Corizon even though they testified they feared for their safety and the well-being of their families

Here's my rundown of Angela Fischer's incredible brave and powerful testimony: kjzz.org/content/644690…

Cecelia Edwards' testimony: “Are you concerned that if you testify today, you may face adverse actions?”

“Yes,” Edwards replied through tears, visibly shaking. kjzz.org/content/645799…

Ok back to today's order - Judge Silver says "remember when the last judge fined you $1.4 million? Yeah . . . that didn't prompt any changes did it?" kjzz.org/content/661544…

Then the state paid all these experts to tell us that we basically needed to have more health care providers taking more time with incarcerated patients - that didn't go anywhere . . .

Then Judge Silver fined the state $1.1 million: "Neither sanction coerced or even motivated complete compliance." kjzz.org/content/166191…

A breakdown of recent performance benchmarks related to the settlement - yellow squares are failures to comply, red squares are failures to comply but the state tried to lie about them and got caught

Judge Silver says the state can't blame COVID-19 for continuing to provide such abysmal health care, especially when we are paying Centurion so much for it - $657,972 a day!!!

Silver: "Defendants’ failures have led to preventable deaths, possibly including suicides. Defendants’ failures have also led to untold suffering by individuals unable to obtain medical treatment . . . It is impossible to quantify, monetarily, the harm suffered by prisoners"

Judge Silver says monetary sanctions have had no effect on the state's performance, so we're going to trial:
"Defendants’ longstanding refusal to acknowledge their shortcomings and identify plausible paths to compliance evidences their pattern of conduct will not change."

Fixing broken thread:

https://twitter.com/JimmyJenkins/status/1416187376062255109?s=20

.@kjzzphoenix has been all over this story for the past 5 years, and it's all lead up to this. You can read hundreds of reports on Arizona prisons and more about this prison health care case here: kjzz.org/tags/arizona-p…

Here's a write-up of the order with a bunch of related links, the full order, and reactions from @ACLU National Prison Project attorney @ck94117 kjzz.org/content/170017…

Kendrick thinks the trial could lead to Judge Silver ordering more health care staff be hired, or even taking the entire prison health care system into receivership - I'll be getting more reactions this weekend and will have an update on @kjzzphoenix Monday morning

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