UMATILLA — A Umatilla County judge has taken the rare step of ordering the release of a paralyzed prisoner serving a Measure 11 sentence after finding Oregon Department of Corrections doctors repeatedly failed to manage his pain with recommended medications, including a narcotic.

Circuit Judge Robert Collins held the agency’s medical department in contempt last week for its “inhumane” treatment of Anthony White, 35.

White is serving a 19-year sentence for a string of burglaries, robberies and an assault in Marion, Lane and Multnomah counties. He is housed at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla.

People convicted and sentenced under Oregon’s mandatory minimum sentencing law, known as Measure 11, are not eligible for early release, making the judge’s’ ruling all the more unusual.

White’s lawyer, Tara Herivel, said the case represents the first time the Department of Corrections has been held in contempt. She said it is also the first time a judge has ordered an inmate’s release over medical care.

White two years ago filed a habeas corpus petition, seeking release over the agency’s treatment of his condition.

During an attempted robbery in 2014, White was shot by an armored truck employee in Eugene. The shooting left his legs paralyzed.

White is one of 19 inmates in the state’s prison system who are paralyzed, according to the Department of Corrections.

White’s medical care has been the subject of nearly a dozen court hearings in the past two years.

At one point, Collins ordered the Department of Corrections to have White evaluated by a spinal cord injury specialist, and that physician, Dr. Erik Blake, recommended White be seen by a pain management specialist, Dr. Andrew Oh.

Oh made multiple recommendations, including medications and specific doses, including a narcotic.

The state, court records show, went along with some of Oh’s recommendations and, for instance, got him a custom wheelchair. Herivel, said the state was ordered to get White the wheelchair.

But Department of Corrections doctors have balked at Oh’s drug recommendations for White and instead followed a different treatment plan, according to court filings.

In a stinging rebuke from the bench during a hearing last month, Collins decried “the arrogance of the doctors who just willfully disregard the Court.”

Collins followed up with final ruling in the case last week.

The Department of Corrections declined to comment on the case, citing pending litigation.