On June 2, 1980, Carroll was nominated by President
Jimmy Carter to a new seat on the
United States District Court for the District of Arizona created by 92 Stat. 1629. Carroll was confirmed by the
United States Senate on June 26, 1980, received his commission on June 30, 1980, and was sworn in on September 12, 1980. On October 10, 1994, Carroll assumed
senior status, opening up a judgeship position for
Roslyn O. Silver. From 1994 to 2008, although on senior status, Carroll maintained a full draw of cases, and one of the heaviest caseloads in the district. Carroll retired into inactive senior status in 2011, remaining in that status until his death. Starting in July 2000, the
Maricopa County Sheriff's website hosted images broadcast from cameras installed in the Madison Street Jail, which housed only
pretrial detainees. A group of pretrial detainees sued Sheriff
Joe Arpaio and the Sheriff's office, arguing that the internet broadcasts violated their rights under the
Fourteenth Amendment. Carroll agreed and imposed an
injunction. By a vote of 2 to 1, a 3-judge panel of the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Carroll's injunction, with the majority opinion stating: "We fail to see how turning pretrial detainees into the unwilling objects of the latest reality show serves any [...] legitimate goals [...] Inmates are not like animals in a zoo to be filmed and photographed at will". In April 2008, Carroll granted in part and denied in part a motion for
summary judgment by a group of Latino professors at
Maricopa Community College, who had objected to their college's failure to discipline a math professor who distributed emails containing multiple racially charged and politically incorrect statements about immigration. In May 2010, a 3-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the judge's ruling, holding that academic freedom protected the right of the math professor to speak his mind on controversial issues. ==Marriage and children==