Jensen v. Thornell

Jensen v. Thornell is a federal lawsuit challenging medical care, mental health care, and conditions in maximum custody isolation units in Arizona state prisons. The case, which previously has been called Jensen v. Shinn and Parsons v. Ryan, is a class action on behalf of all people housed in the nine (formerly ten) Arizona state prisons. The lawsuit sought only to change the policies and practices of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation & Reentry (ADCRR), and did not seek money damages. The case was filed in March 2012 by the Prison Law Office, the ACLU, Disability Rights Arizona, and other lawyers.

Although the parties settled this case in October 2014, the state consistently failed to follow the terms of that settlement. So, in July 2021, Judge Silver rescinded the court’s approval of the settlement, and the parties went to trial in the fall of 2021.

After a fifteen-day trial held in November and December 2021, Judge Silver issued a 200-page order on June 30, 2022, finding that ADCRR violates the constitutional rights of people in prison. The evidence at trial showed that incarcerated people suffered excruciating pain, permanent injuries, and preventable deaths due to the state's failures to provide health care. The court found that the “health care system is plainly grossly inadequate. Defendants have been aware of their failures for years and Defendants have refused to take necessary actions to remedy the failures.” The court also found that the treatment of people in the detention units was shocking, and that ADCRR kept “hundreds of prisoners in maximum custody housing despite all prison officials admitting there is no penological justification for doing so.”

On April 7, 2023, Judge Silver issued a 57-page order (called an Injunction) requiring ADCRR to fix the constitutional violations. She appointed four experts to serve as neutral monitors to assist the court in monitoring ADCRR’s compliance with the Injunction. The Injunction required ADCRR to make “substantial” changes to staffing and conditions so that medical care and mental healthcare at Arizona prisons come up to constitutional standards.

On February 11, 2025, we filed a motion asking the federal court to appoint a receiver to oversee health care in Arizona state prisons. A receivership is a legal process in which a neutral third party (the receiver) is appointed by a court to take day-to-day management over the subject of litigation. Starting in the civil rights era, federal courts have appointed receivers to manage public institutions, for example, when local governments refused to desegregate public schools. Receivers have been appointed by federal courts to run prisons, jails, and child welfare agencies. Receiverships are rare, and occur in cases when less intrusive remedial efforts of the courts have failed. On February 19, 2026, Judge Silver issued a 128-page order granting our motion for a receiver, stating:

To declare a government will not accept the constitutional responsibility to provide adequate healthcare is huge. Ordering the implementation of a receivership is extraordinary, and the Court has exercised caution and critical reflection in making the decision. But since the beginning of the case, the Court has forborne imposing the harshest penalties, opting instead to guide Defendants with the help of the Monitors towards comprehensive constitutional compliance. But now after nearly 14 years of litigation with Defendants having not gained compliance, or even a semblance of compliance with the Injunction and the Constitution, this approach has not only failed completely, but, if continued, would be nothing short of judicial indulgence of deeply entrenched unconstitutional conduct. Plainly, only the imposition of the extraordinary can bring an end to this litigation and the reasons it was brought. An end to unconstitutional preventable suicides. An end to unconstitutional preventable deaths. An end to unconstitutional failures to treat those in severe pain. The Motion for a Receiver will be granted.