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Fulbright, Joshua Craig
Status: active
Profile written July 19, 2026
This profile reflects positional accountability — this individual held the leadership roles shown during the dates shown, during which the listed deaths or lawsuits occurred. Inclusion does not constitute a legal finding of personal culpability for any specific incident.
Tenure Summary
Joshua Craig Fulbright has spent more than a decade inside the Georgia Department of Corrections, beginning as a correctional officer at Lee Arrendale State Prison in 2011 and advancing to sergeant, lieutenant, and captain at the same facility. After a stint as a unit manager at an unlisted site, he was named Deputy Warden of Security at Phillips State Prison in October 2024, a role he held until January 2026 while also serving as Deputy Warden during the 2025 calendar year. GPS records attribute 26 in‑custody deaths at Phillips State Prison to Fulbright’s tenure as a facility‑level deputy. Those fatalities span homicides, suicides, accidents, and numerous deaths classified as natural, including one case in which the family contests the official finding. No lawsuits naming Fulbright as a defendant appear in the available database.What happened on their watch
Fulbright entered the deputy‑warden role at Phillips State Prison on October 1, 2024. The first recorded death came six days later: Nile Baptiste Young, 33, died by suicide, according to the Gwinnett County Coroner and GBI Medical Examiner. On October 11, Brandon Lashaun Mincey, 37, was killed in a homicide, per the same source. Three more men died before the year ended. Leroy Brooks, 64, was found deceased on December 9; the medical examiner declined jurisdiction and the prison physician was to sign a natural‑cause certificate based on medical history, but Brooks’s daughter told investigators “it can’t be natural causes,” citing a history of beatings in custody and a prior lawsuit filed by his mother. Corey Madison Cochran, 29, died by homicide on December 18, and Eddie Ray Scott, 60, died of natural causes the next day, all per coroner reports.The pace did not slow in 2025. January alone saw five deaths: Jody Stokes was a homicide; William Pate, Shun Pinkston, Thomas Nicely, and Willie Roseborough were all classified as natural. Suicides claimed Christopher Blake Hines (37) on March 24 and Terry Nichols (42) on October 14. Accidental deaths were recorded for Kendrick Keon Scales (35) on August 27 and Justin Curtis Kinsey (37) on November 8. The majority of the year’s fatalities — at least twelve — were natural deaths affecting men from their early 30s to late 70s, including Taron Edmonds (32), John Dean Tolbert (69), Joseph Ulrich (30), and Harry Ray Taldon (57). Two deaths in early 2026, Cornelius Burge (42) and Rickie Lynn Rutherford (41), were assigned a cause category of 6, which GPS records indicate as unknown or pending.
Phillips State Prison was already under public scrutiny. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had reported allegations that officers arranged for a prisoner to be brought to a lockdown unit where he was fatally stabbed in a gang‑related fight, and that another prisoner was assaulted with pipes while in a mental‑health ward. Although those incidents predate Fulbright’s arrival, they describe a facility where violence — at times facilitated by staff — had been a documented concern. During his tenure, a federal judge in a separate case declined to dismiss a lawsuit arguing that Georgia’s parole process for juvenile lifers is an unconstitutional sham, a case that touched on conditions throughout the state’s prisons, including Phillips.
Litigation
No lawsuits listing Fulbright as a defendant were identified.Sources
- Georgia Prisoners’ Speak personnel and deaths database — 26 total in‑custody deaths at Phillips State Prison during Fulbright’s deputy‑warden tenure
- Gwinnett County Coroner / GBI Medical Examiner reports, OCR’d 2026‑06‑26 — cause and manner determinations for multiple decedents (Young, Mincey, Brooks, Cochran, Stokes, Scales, Nichols, Kinsey, and others)
- GPS investigative case #141 — “Leroy Brooks — contested in‑custody death, Phillips State Prison,” including family contest of natural‑cause finding
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution — “Ga prison homicides: A list of those killed in Georgia’s prison system” (allegations of officer‑arranged stabbing at Phillips)
- GPS intel events — federal court ruling on juvenile‑lifer parole lawsuit (March 2026)
Positions Held
| Title | Facility | Tenure |
|---|---|---|
| DEPUTY WARDEN | PHILLIPS STATE PRISON | 2025-01-01 → present |
| Deputy Warden of Security | PHILLIPS STATE PRISON | 2024-10-01 → 2026-01-15 |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL UNIT MANAGER | 2024-01-01 → 2024-09-30 | |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL CAPTAIN | Arrendale State Prison | 2022-01-01 → 2023-12-31 |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL OFFICER 2 | 2018-01-01 → 2018-12-31 | |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL LIEUTENANT | Arrendale State Prison | 2017-01-01 → 2017-12-31 |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL SERGEANT | Arrendale State Prison | 2016-01-01 → 2016-12-31 |
| CORRECTIONS OFFICER(WL) | Arrendale State Prison | 2015-01-01 → 2015-12-31 |
| Correctional Officer | Arrendale State Prison | 2011-01-01 → 2011-12-31 |
Deaths attributed during tenure
26 people died at facilities under Fulbright, Joshua Craig's leadership.
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