Arizona Capitol Times Your Inside Source for Arizona Government, Politics and Business

Caroline Isaacs knows how to harmonize. Whether it’s striking the right chord on criminal justice reform at the Capitol or belting out with her band, Sundust Road, in Tucson, Isaacs gets the job done.

A federal judge has approved a settlement between the state and a group of condemned prisoners who sued over how Arizona conducts executions.

Saying lawmakers wrote what they meant, the state Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the same-sex spouse of a woman who gave birth to a child is not entitled to a presumption she is a parent.

In a unanimous decision, the judges rejected the arguments by attorneys for the Maricopa County Community College District that their legal status under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program means the federal government considers them to be legally present in the country.

Arizona's smallest towns and fire districts do not have the same protections against federal age-discrimination lawsuits as small private companies, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

Multiple attempts in the Legislature to amend state law so Tesla Motors could sell its electric cars directly to Arizona consumers were unsuccessful, but it turns it that they weren’t necessary in the first place.

Hundreds of state criminal cases are under review after the FBI discovered the widespread misrepresentation of microscopic hair analysis.

Attorneys for the state are trying to block challengers to newly enacted initiative restrictions from telling their story to a judge. The lawyers contend that the claims of those who contend the new law will harm future petition efforts are "fanciful and not genuine.''

In a unanimous decision, the justices rejected arguments by the Gila River Indian Community that Arizona court must transfer such cases to tribal courts. Writing for the court Chief Justice Scott Bales said while such transfer is permissive, it is not a right.

An agreement struck between death-row prisoners and the Arizona Department of Corrections in federal court vastly limits the discretion in executions once afforded to Director Charles Ryan.