Born in Tucson, Arizona,[1] Carroll served as an ensign in the United States Navy during World War II, from 1943 to 1946.

[3] From 1994 to 2008, although on senior status, Carroll maintained a full draw of cases, and one of the heaviest caseloads in the district.

[4] 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.

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...

[5] 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.

[6] In May 2010, a 3-judge panel of the 9th 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.