A federal appellate court has agreed to decide whether Arizona’s 33,000 prisoners can be in a lawsuit alleging that prison healthcare and confinement conditions amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

Raising doubts from skeptics, Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan told a legislative committee Wednesday the department has no solitary confinement, despite keeping the maximum-security inmates in their cells alone for 22 hours a day.

A warden and a security official have resigned their posts at an Arizona state prison where three inmates escaped last month, setting off a nationwide search.