Arizona prisoners: Court should take control of health care

Lawyers challenging the quality of health care in Arizona's prisons asked a judge to take over responsibilities for providing inmate care and appoint an official to run medical and mental health services.

Attorneys representing inmates said Friday that the state hasn't fulfilled many of its promised changes to inmate care it made nearly five years ago when the case was settled.

They requested a receivership be ordered to run health care operations in state-run prisons and asked the judge to follow through on her earlier threat to impose a second contempt-of-court fine against the state for noncompliance.

The first fine was for $1.4 million.

The second possible fine could reach as much as $1.2 million.

The Department of Corrections had no immediate comment on the receivership request.