Internal emails show that Chief Deputy Attorney General Daniel Barr, the top aide to Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, repeatedly asked the American Civil Liberties Union and the Berkeley-based Prison Law Office for help finding attorneys to handle corrections-related legal work, even though both groups had spent years suing the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry.
Barr had his own history with both organizations. Before joining the Attorney General’s Office, he was a partner at Perkins Coie, where he litigated alongside the ACLU and the Prison Law Office in a federal case that led a judge to find Arizona’s prison conditions constitutionally inadequate.
In February 2023, Barr emailed representatives of both groups: “I am looking to bring as much ADCRR work back in-house as possible in the Arizona AG’s Office. To do that, I need to hire attorneys to represent ADCRR in numerous capacities. If you know of anyone who may be interested in helping to turnaround things around here, please let me know.”
Two months later, he asked the same groups for candidates to fill ADCRR’s top legal post, forwarding a job posting and writing, “Let me know if you have any suggested candidates.” When no one applied, he followed up again on May 11, 2023: “Still no takers for the ADCRR general counsel job. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.”
That same day, David Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, replied that he would “redouble” his efforts to find a candidate. Corene Kendrick, the project’s deputy director, offered a possible recommendation of her own — someone she said was “enjoying suing ADCRR in civil rights damages cases in her spare time of running her café in Carrizozo.”
Fox News Digital, which first obtained the emails, noted it had only email records and not call transcripts or meeting notes, so it is unclear what further help, if any, the two groups gave the office. ADCRR ultimately hired Ashley Oddo as general counsel. Oddo previously led Arizona State University’s Academy for Justice and had supported criminal-justice positions associated with the left, including addressing systemic racism in policing and pardoning people convicted of nonviolent federal marijuana offenses. She has no institutional ties to the ACLU or the Prison Law Office, and neither group mentioned her name in the emails reviewed.
A Relationship That Predates the Emails
The correspondence also shows a friendly working relationship between Barr and staff at both groups. Fathi asked for a phone call with Barr in February 2023 and got a reply two minutes later. In another email, Fathi said the director of ADCRR had reached out to him “to schedule a call about working together on ADCRR issues.” Don Specter, a longtime Prison Law Office attorney, separately described having a “productive meeting” with the ADCRR director in June 2023.
Groups’ Positions Differ From Mayes’ Public Stance
Both organizations have pushed for significant changes to how the country handles incarceration. The ACLU has set a national goal of cutting jail and prison populations by half through decriminalization, bail reform, shorter sentences and clemency, and has also called for reduced immigration detention. It has published blog posts titled “Defunding the Police Will Actually Make Us Safer” and “Local Officials: Pledge to Divest from Police and Reinvest in Black Communities,” and has urged Congress and local governments to cut police funding.
The Prison Law Office says its work focuses on reducing incarceration and improving prison conditions, medical care, disability rights and the use of solitary confinement. Its litigation has contributed to court-ordered reductions in California’s prison population, and it has backed credit systems that speed up release eligibility and reentry programs allowing people to serve part of their sentences in the community.
Mayes has described herself as a political moderate. During her 2022 campaign, she gave
