Last updated November 8, 2026.(DS)

Charles D. Hudson Transitional Center

Charles D. Hudson Transitional Center sits in LaGrange, in Troup County, a 154-bed close-security facility for men that GDC operates as a transitional center — the work-release tier of the state system, where people nearing release hold outside jobs and return to custody at night. GPS's standing record describes it as a transitional center at Rutledge State Prison. Its superintendent is Charles M. Fleming, listed in GDC's personnel records as correctional superintendent since 2021, with Katrina Louise Thompson as correctional assistant superintendent since 2022.

The public record around Hudson is thin but not empty. It contains a six-figure state liability settlement tied to a 2023 incident, a single death in GPS's mortality registry since 2020, and GPS's own reporting on accounts of a CERT team assault on a resident. Those three threads — money paid out, a life ended, and force used — are what this page can establish. The rest of what follows places them against the systemwide conditions GPS has documented across GDC.

A $200,000 Settlement and What the Ledger Records

Georgia's Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger, obtained through an open records request, records a $200,000 liability payout to Brenda Etheridge tied to Charles D. Hudson Transitional Center, with the underlying incident dated April 6, 2023. The settlement is logged as a GDC matter and carries the state's own confirmation of payment.

The ledger entry establishes the fact of the payout and its size; it does not, on its own, describe what happened. What can be said is that $200,000 in state money changed hands over an event at a 154-bed transitional center — a facility type the public rarely associates with liability claims of that magnitude. GPS treats settlement ledgers as one of the few places where the cost of what happens inside Georgia prisons surfaces in public accounting, even when the underlying incident does not.

The Death Registry: Mickey Skyles

GPS's mortality registry records one death at Charles D. Hudson Transitional Center since January 2020. Mickey Skyles died June 24, 2025, at the facility; he was 62. GPS's registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending — meaning GPS does not yet know why he died, and this page does not guess.

That single entry is a floor, not a full account. GDC reports deaths to the public roughly two months late, so any recent death may not yet appear. Across the system, GPS has independently tracked 1,928 deaths in GDC custody since 2020.

Accounts of a CERT Team Assault

GPS's reporting describes accounts that, on April 6, 2025, CERT team officers assaulted residents at Charles D. Hudson Transitional Center. In those accounts, resident Michael Schullerman was beaten, suffering a split lip that required 12 stitches, and was then coerced into signing a false statement about how he was injured.

These are accounts GPS has published, not findings confirmed by an independent body, and they should be read that way. What makes them analytically significant is the facility type. A transitional center is the last stop before release — the place where a person is supposed to be demonstrating that he can hold a job and come back at night. An assault by a tactical team in that setting, if the accounts hold, would sit at the far end of a continuum GPS has documented systemwide: the use of force as a first instrument rather than a last one.

Staffing, Infrastructure, and the System Hudson Sits Inside

Hudson's own record is small, but the conditions GPS has documented across GDC apply to it as a GDC facility. Officer vacancies in Georgia's prisons have run between 49.3% and 60% systemwide for multiple years, against a national standard of no more than 10%; Georgia ranks last of 50 states for correctional-officer pay, and 82.7% of new hires leave in their first year. In its October 2024 findings letter, the U.S. Department of Justice concluded that GDC leadership "has lost control of its facilities" and faulted the department for placing "too much blame on gangs and insufficient emphasis on understaffing."

The physical plant compounds it. GPS has documented that most GDC facilities are 30 to 40-plus years old, with deferred maintenance producing broken cell-door locks, inoperative surveillance and fire-alarm systems, mold and water failures, and pest infestations — a pattern corroborated by the DOJ's October 2024 findings, the Guidehouse 2024 assessment, and Commissioner Oliver's public statements that facilities are reaching "end of life." GPS treats infrastructure collapse as a force multiplier for the violence, classification, and mortality crises it has documented at the facility level.

Food service is part of the same picture. GDC spends approximately $1.69 per person per day on food (2024) and has proposed $1.60 per day in FY27 — under 60 cents per meal — against the FDA Thrifty Food Plan estimate of roughly $10 per day for an adult man's nutritionally adequate diet. GPS has documented a pattern of kitchen sanitation failure that DPH inspection scores fail to capture: broken tray-sanitizing dishwashers, sustained roach and rodent infestation, and meals served on contaminated trays. The Marshall Project independently corroborated the pattern in a May 16, 2026 investigation, reporting rats in kitchens, insects in food, and moldy trays across Georgia facilities.

Oversight and Accreditation

GDC's own spreadsheet lists Charles D. Hudson Transitional Center among transitional centers with an accreditation schedule — a routine administrative fact that nonetheless marks the facility's place in the department's inspection and review calendar. What that schedule produces, and whether it captures anything like the conditions described above, is not established in the public record GPS holds.

Sources

This analysis draws on Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement records obtained through open records; GDC personnel and accreditation records; GPS's mortality registry; GPS's own investigative reporting on conditions and use of force inside GDC facilities; the U.S. Department of Justice's October 2024 findings letter on Georgia prisons; the Guidehouse 2024 consultant assessment; and The Marshall Project's May 2026 investigation of Georgia prison food service. Accounts of the April 2025 CERT team assault are drawn from GPS's published reporting and are presented as accounts, not as independently confirmed findings.