PHOENIX -- The director of the Arizona Department of Corrections said an inmate who died after spending nearly four hours in the desert heat was left in an outdoor holding cell for twice as long as she should have been.
Marcia Powell, 48, was serving a 27-month sentence for prostitution at the Arizona State Prison Complex - Perryville when detention officers who were transferring her to a detention unit placed her in an uncovered outdoor holding cell around 11 a.m. Tuesday, according to a news release from the DOC.
She collapsed at about 2:40 p.m., and she was taken to West Valley Hospital a half-hour later, the release said.
Powell was pronounced dead Wednesday, shortly after midnight.
Three corrections officers have been put on paid leave during an investigation.
Prisons director Charles Ryan told reporters at an afternoon news briefing he's concerned that Powell was left in her cell despite the fact that there were corrections officers 20 yards away in a control room.
"It's our responsibility to ensure the care and custody of the inmate population," Ryan said. "The death of Marcia Powell is a tragedy and a failure. The purpose of the investigation is to determine whether there was negligence and to remedy our failures."
Ryan said he hopes to release a report into Powell's death by late next week. The Maricopa County Attorney's office will then decide whether to charge the corrections officers involved.
Powell arrived at the Perryville prison in August 2008.
Powell was placed alone in the cell while being moved to an onsite detention unit after seeing a prison psychologist. Ryan said a disturbance at the detention unit prompted Powell's placement in the holding cell. He would not elaborate on the nature of the disturbance.
Ryan said officers gave Powell bottled water, as required under prison policy. Investigators will try to determine how much water she was given and whether she drank it.
Officers did not remove her after two hours as they should have done under department policy, according to Ryan.
"It is intended to be temporary," Ryan said. "It is not intended to be a place where they are held for an inordinate amount of time."
Powell had been in and out of state prisons and had a long history of mental illness, Ryan said. He would not say whether she was on medication.
Ryan would not release the names or disciplinary records of the deputy warden, captain and lieutenant placed on paid leave.
He said he told all state prison wardens to monitor the temperatures at outdoor holding cells while they are housing inmates.
Corrections officials were unable to locate family members. Ryan said prison records show that Powell may have had two children whom she placed in foster care years ago.
Powell is the 79th person to die in state prisons since July 2008, according to Ryan. He said most of the deaths were from natural causes, but there were three suicides and one murder.
There are two deaths still being investigated, including Powell's and that of an inmate who was found dead in his bed at a Buckeye prison last month, Ryan said.
Donna Leone Hamm, executive director of Tempe-based Middle Ground Prison Reform Inc., called the outdoor cell "a cage for human beings" and said Powell's case represents a failure of the mental health system.
"There are hundreds of mentally ill people who have been shuffled out of the mental health system and into prisons," Hamm said. "But this particular situation is unconscionable."
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