Last updated September 27, 2026.(DS)

Georgia State Prison: The Record of a Closed Institution

Georgia State Prison (GSP) stood in unincorporated Tattnall County, outside Reidsville, and was for decades the state's principal maximum-security institution. The main building was designed by the Atlanta firm Tucker & Howell in a Stripped Classical style, completed in late 1936 at a cost of about $1.5 million with Public Works Administration funding, and the prison opened in 1938. It held Georgia's death row until 1980. Martin Luther King Jr. was moved here from the DeKalb County jail in October 1960 and released on bond that month; the civil-rights organiser H. Rap Brown, now Jamil Al-Amin, was also held here. The Department of Corrections closed the prison on 19 February 2022. The building was not demolished — the state cited its historical value and has since used it for tours and as an emergency evacuation site for people held at other facilities.

The closure did not close the record. What follows is an accounting of the last years of an institution whose legal history — a thirteen-year federal reform decree, later dismantled — is among the clearest available case studies in how court-ordered prison reform in Georgia was won and then abandoned.

Guthrie v. Evans and the Reform That Was Erased

In 1972, Black inmates at Georgia State Prison filed a federal lawsuit that produced the most comprehensive court-ordered reforms ever imposed on a single American prison. The case, Guthrie v. Evans, generated thirteen years of federal court oversight and comprehensive remedial decrees governing constitutional conditions at the facility. GPS's own reporting describes the litigation as a thirteen-year federal court victory that produced comprehensive remedial decrees — reforms that were subsequently dismantled.

That oversight ended. Per GPS's reporting, congressional action gave Georgia the tool to walk away from the decrees, and the state used it immediately — dismantling the reforms the federal courts had imposed. The same constitutional violations identified fifty years ago were found again in the Department of Justice's 2024 investigation of Georgia prisons, which documented unconstitutional risk of harm and serious infrastructure problems across the system.

The graph also records a darker chapter in the facility's federal history: a 1978 riot at Georgia State Prison that resulted in three deaths, after which a federal court ordered the prison re-segregated by race. That order, too, was among the reforms subsequently dismantled by the state.

Deaths in Custody, 2020–2022

GPS has recorded 46 deaths at Georgia State Prison since January 1, 2020 — a figure that is a floor, not a ceiling, since GDC reports deaths roughly two months late. The full list is maintained at GPS's facility death registry. The registry's cause coding for those deaths breaks down as 18 natural or medical, 12 suicide, 7 homicide, 4 overdose, 2 accident, 1 medical neglect, 1 unknown or pending, and 1 other.

The most recent 25 people on that list:

• Angelo Ortiz Roxbury died December 8, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical.
• Lamont Avery Morris died November 30, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Accident.
• Zachary Daniel Strudgeon died November 29, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide.
• Matthew Michael Cooney died November 6, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide.
• Troy Donald Harvey died September 12, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide.
• Fabian Mata Garcia died September 10, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide.
• Paul Kozachyn died August 24, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical.
• Ted Howard Screws died August 8, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical.
• Carlos Smith-Jones died July 14, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Overdose.
• Charles Clifton died July 11, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical.
• Christopher Dcorro Ward died May 25, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide.
• Malik Pitts died May 21, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide.
• Calvin Lavert Lewis died May 5, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Other.
• John Kennedy Cope died April 12, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Unknown/Pending.
• Collin Jackson Donaldson died April 10, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide.
• Roberto Garza Bazan died February 27, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical.
• Christopher Dewayne Mathis died February 26, 2021, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide.
• Demetrius Terrell Stubbins died December 21, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide.
• Tommy James Bullard died December 11, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical.
• Steve Neal Williams died December 1, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical.
• Brandon Allen Peters died November 23, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Medical Neglect.
• Joctavious Nmn Newsome died November 4, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Homicide.
• Victor Vean Thompson died October 28, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical.
• Linward Adams died October 24, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Natural/Medical.
• Terrell Toshra Hamilton died October 20, 2020, at Georgia State Prison; the registry lists the cause as Suicide.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution documented seven homicides at the facility between 2020 and 2021, a count that matches the registry's homicide coding. Among them: Troy Donald Harvey, 34, who died September 12, 2021, from a stab wound to the chest; Fabian Garcia-Mata, 27, who died September 10, 2021, from multiple stab wounds; Christopher D'Corro Ward, 29, who died May 25, 2021, from carbon monoxide poisoning due to smoke inhalation and methamphetamine toxicity, with an incident report showing a fire; Christopher Dewayne Mathis, 37, who died February 26, 2021, from blunt force trauma to the head; Demetrius Stubbins, 38, who died December 21, 2020, from a stab wound to the chest; Joctavious Artez Newsome, 25, who died November 4, 2020, from a stab wound; and Raul Garcia Bailon, 39, who died April 21, 2020, from positional asphyxia and suffocation due to assault and blunt trauma to soft tissues.

Medical Neglect and the Peters Case

The registry's single "Medical Neglect" coding belongs to Brandon Allen Peters, 44, who died November 23, 2020, at Georgia State Prison. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that officials failed to intervene and provide proper medical care to Peters, who suffered for days from severe symptoms before dying in his cell. Peters's death is also linked to a documented state liability payout: a $750,000 GDC settlement recorded in the Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger, tied to a 2020 incident at the facility.

The AJC separately documented a 2020 case at Georgia State Prison in which a prisoner was found so malnourished that every bone in his spine was bruised, with a jaw fracture and human bite marks across his body. He reported being sexually assaulted by his cellmate and having his food stolen for months. The same reporting describes staff failing to notice his condition.

Solitary Confinement, the PREA Hotline, and the Cassady Allegations

The Georgia Virtue reported in February 2026 on allegations by Cassady, a transgender woman held at Georgia State Prison, that she was placed in solitary confinement in July 2019 and remained there for months without the segregation hearings GDC policy requires every 30 days. According to that reporting, Cassady was held in conditions including feces-covered walls, black mold, rodents, no lighting, and no heat or cooling. At the time she mailed the bombs at issue in her federal case, the outlet reported, she had gone six months without a psychiatric evaluation or the psychotherapy sessions she had been participating in prior to segregation placement.

Cassady further alleges that the PREA hotline phone was inaccessible to her because it was inside a locked box, and that Warden James Deal told her courts and GDC do not care about transgender inmates. She also alleges that GDC determined her 2018 sexual assault claims were "unfounded," released the alleged assailant from segregation back to her cell block, and that a subsequent physical assault resulted in her partner being stabbed nine times. These are allegations reported by The Georgia Virtue; they have not been independently corroborated.

Separately, Cassady claims she was beaten, stabbed, and brutally raped by another inmate at Georgia State Prison in 1996 and had to be transported to the hospital for care due to her injuries.

What the State Paid Out

Between 2010 and 2021, the Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger records at least sixteen liability payouts tied to incidents at Georgia State Prison — a documented total exceeding $5.6 million. The largest single payout was $2,998,994 to Khalid Mouton, tied to a January 4, 2021 incident. A $1,000,000 settlement went to Nicholas Baldwin for a November 7, 2014 incident. A $625,000 settlement went to Collin Jackson Donaldson for an April 10, 2021 incident; the ledger links that payout to a documented death record, and the registry lists Donaldson, 21, as having died by suicide on that date.

Other settlements include $750,000 to Brandon A. Peters (2020, linked to a documented death record); $115,000 to Seth Rouzan (2018); $62,500 to Jermarae Herbert (2019); $35,000 to Jamaal Wright (2021); $30,000 to Curtis Spires (2010); $8,408 to Sue Hobbs (2018); $7,500 each to Norman Simpson (2021) and Quonterious Toles (2018); $5,000 each to Jermarae Herbert (2021) and William Navarro Castillo (2016); $2,500 to Aaron Jewann Robinson (2019); $1,000 each to Kelton Alston (2018) and Nicholas Baldwin (2014); and $700 to Micki Brown (2019).

A Facility Closed, a Record Left Open

Georgia State Prison closed in early 2022 — the AJC reported the closure came amid a federal investigation into the conditions of GDC facilities generally. The closure was abrupt. The state did not demolish the building, citing its historical value, and has since used it for tours and as an emergency evacuation site for people held at other facilities.

The closure removed the facility from the system's active roster. It did not resolve the questions the facility's record raises: how a prison under thirteen years of federal remedial decrees could return, within a generation, to the same constitutional violations a federal court had already identified; how seven homicides could occur in two years at a facility the state would close within months; and how a man could die of medical neglect in a cell while staff passed his door. Those questions now belong to the system as a whole. GPS has independently tracked 1,896 deaths in GDC custody since 2020.

Sources

This analysis draws on the Georgia Department of Administrative Services Risk Management settlement ledger obtained through open records request; GPS's own mortality registry and facility records; reporting by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Georgia Virtue; the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division's October 2024 findings report on Georgia prisons; and GPS's prior investigative and historical reporting on Guthrie v. Evans and the dismantling of federal court-ordered reforms at Georgia State Prison.