A national commission has yanked accreditation for health care in Maricopa County's jails after reviewing testimony in a federal lawsuit over jail conditions.

Read letter from National Commission on Correctional Health Care

The National Commission on Correctional Health Care notified Sheriff Joe Arpaio last week that it was withdrawing its accreditation for the jail's clinics "for failure to maintain compliance with national standards and providing false information about such compliance."

In the letter to Arpaio, commission president Edward Harrison said testimony during the hearing in U.S. District Court, which concluded last month after nearly four weeks, and interviews with witnesses led to the action.

"We regret that the jails have not been able to maintain compliance with NCCHC's standards and provided information that was not accurate," Harrison wrote.

The commission put Correctional Health Services on probationary status in February 2006 for a variety of problems, but lifted probation upon assurances from the agency that there was an "effective system of tracking chronic disease patients."

County officials and experts for both sides testified in court that there were problems monitoring chronically ill patients, including inmates who were seriously mentally ill, and assessing inmates for medical conditions.

Two of the county's expert witnesses, Dr. Kathryn Burns and Dr. Donald Kern, survey jails and prisons for the accreditation agency. Dr. Todd Wilcox, a former correctional health director who testified on behalf of the inmates, is also a commission surveyor.

Correctional Health Services is a separate county agency responsible for inmates' medical, mental and dental care.

Phoenix lawyer Dennis Wilenchik, who represents correctional health, filed notice Tuesday with U.S. District Judge Neil Wake that the accreditation had been terminated.

Correctional health director Betty Adams disputed the commission's findings in an affidavit also submitted to Wake on Tuesday. "CHS does not know to what 'trial testimony' or 'witness interviews' the letter from NCCHC is referring," Adams said in the affidavit. "As the evidence at the hearing conducted by this court demonstrates, CHS has policies and procedures in place to ensure that patients with chronic diseases receive appropriate care."

Adams has asked the commission to reconsider its decision, which puts the action on hold pending the commission's review.

Neither Wilenchik nor Adams returned calls seeking comment.

Wake has yet to rule in the case, which stems from a 30-year-old class-action lawsuit that claims inmates who have not been convicted of a crime are denied adequate food, health care and housing in violation of constitutional provisions that protect them from punishment.

The county is seeking to end provisions of a consent decree that resulted from the original 1977 lawsuit, arguing that a federal prison reform act requires the case to be closed.

The inmates say the sheriff and correctional health officials never abided by terms of the agreement and that jail conditions have only worsened.

The centerpiece of Wilenchik's defense of correctional health has been that the clinics meet the national commission's standards. More than 500 jails and prisons nationwide are accredited under the voluntary program. It remains to be seen how loss of that accreditation will affect the case.

ACLU attorney Margaret Winter, who represents inmates, has maintained that accreditation does not equal constitutional care, a view supported by previous court rulings. Even if it did, experts for the inmates testified that both mental and medical care fall short of accreditation standards.

Winter said Tuesday she doesn't know what led to the commission's decision, but noted that several people involved with the case also are affiliated with the commission. Experts from both sides were permitted to examine records and tour jail facilities in June.

"Something dreadful was going on there and I think that people who are connected with the NCCHC and connected with the case may have been quite disturbed by what they saw," she said.

"This decision is long overdue, as medical and mental health care in the jails have been grossly inadequate for years," said Winter, associate director of the ACLU's National Prison Project.

The jail's clinics were licensed by the state Department of Health Services until 2003, when lawmakers exempted them. That law required county sheriffs to ensure some kind of annual inspection and provide proof of that inspection to state licensing officials.