Clark, Reginald Tyrone

Tenure Summary

Reginald Tyrone Clark’s GDC employment record begins in 2015 as a corrections officer, followed by CSM correctional lieutenant in 2016–2017, CSM correctional captain in 2018–2019, CSM correctional unit manager in 2020–2022, and deputy warden from 2023 through 2025 at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison. GPS records attribute 65 deaths to Clark’s leadership tenure at GDCP; the per-facility tally likewise lists 65 deaths at that facility. One federal lawsuit names Clark as a defendant: Jackson v. Deputy Warden Reginald Clark, filed September 5, 2023, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, and still pending with no disposition in the record.

What happened on their watch

Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison — Deputy Warden (Jan. 2023–Dec. 2025). GPS records attribute 65 deaths to this posting. The death records include deaths attributed to violence: Carrell D. Johnson, 32, died June 6, 2023; the AJC homicide investigation recorded his cause of death as chopping injuries of the head and sharp-force injuries of the torso. Elmer W. Pless, 65, died May 15, 2023; the AJC recorded strangulation. Other deaths carry disputed or heavily documented circumstances. Billy Joe Farmer, 42, died March 25, 2023, was certified a suicide by the GBI medical examiner, and GPS notes that his widow later disputed that finding, while a GDC incident report records that Farmer reported a threat to his life minutes before death and that the death was not videotaped or forwarded for investigation. Joshua Mark Holliday, 43, died October 21, 2024; a GBI autopsy found ligature hanging, positive methamphetamine, and manner of suicide, while noting a date discrepancy in the official record. Brandon Trace Burrell, 31, died January 28, 2024; according to the AJC, Burrell was assaulted by another inmate while under the effects of methamphetamine and reportedly suffered numerous stab wounds. GPS event reports on Mark Smith’s June 2025 death at GDCP describe a death from neglect tied to Parkinson’s disease, medication failures, and delayed response.

Broader facility patterns overlap Clark’s tenure. GPS event reports describe GDCP holding about 4,540 incarcerated people in a facility designed for 800 — 568% of original design capacity — and describe the resulting conditions as constitutional overcrowding. In April 2024, a facility incident report recorded that inmate Ronald Allen suffered severe cold injury to his hands while handling frozen meat with inadequate protective equipment; a later federal civil rights suit against GDC and twelve defendants, filed in March 2026, is not recorded as naming Clark. AJC reporting collected in GPS records also states that in June 2024, newly convicted inmate Shane Tassi was photographed at GDCP with a homemade shank and contraband cell phone; that Officer Vera Jackson admitted to accepting thousands of dollars to provide a death row prisoner with information on shakedowns and staff; that Charles Lee Broady Jr. was moved to a location where six gang members attacked him with razor blades after he requested protection; and that at David “Toro” Zavala’s guilty plea, officers had seized 35 cellphones from him. GPS also recorded AJC reporting that almost every part of GDCP had been vandalized and that infrastructure was failing.

Litigation

• Jackson v. Deputy Warden Reginald Clark, No. 5:23-cv-00333 (M.D. Ga. filed Sept. 5, 2023). Status: pending. No settlement or judgment is listed in the provided records.

Sources

• GPS personnel and accountability records — positions, death totals, per-facility tallies, intel reports, and facility events.
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — “Georgia prison homicides: A list of those killed in Georgia’s prison system” (Johnson, Pless, Burrell).
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — “Georgia DA warns prison conditions threaten public safety” (Tassi).
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — “Prisons: Inside job” (Vera Jackson).
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — “Prison system failures cost Georgia taxpayers millions” (Broady).
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — “Locked up but not stopped” (Zavala cellphones).
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — “Georgia prisons in crisis, say consultants hired by governor” (GDCP vandalism and infrastructure).
• CourtListener — docket for Jackson v. Deputy Warden Reginald Clark.
• GBI Medical Examiner reports and GDC mortality records archived in the GPS registry (Farmer, Holliday, and related death records).

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Aug 23, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.