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Harris, Latasha M
Status: active
Profile written May 31, 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
Latasha M. Harris began her employment with the Georgia Department of Corrections in 2015 as a Correctional Officer, advancing to Correctional Lieutenant (2016–2017) and then Correctional Unit Manager, a position she held from 2018 through 2024. None of those earlier roles carried a specific facility assignment in the GPS records. In January 2025 Harris was appointed Deputy Warden at Augusta State Medical Prison (ASMP) at an annual salary of $75,470.50. GPS records attribute 60 deaths at ASMP to her tenure as deputy warden, all of which occurred between January 2025 and May 2026. Harris is also a named defendant in a multi-district product‑liability lawsuit that predates her deputy warden appointment.What happened on their watch
Harris became deputy warden on 1 January 2025. From that date through the most recently recorded incident on 21 May 2026, GPS documented 60 deaths inside Augusta State Medical Prison. The deaths include at least three homicides: Kendius Hill (homicide, 9 January 2025), Jerry Merritt (stabbed to death by a fellow prisoner over a commissary debt, 20 January 2026), and a third homicide on 21 May 2026 involving a decedent identified only as “Kamiche,” which a prisoner‑source report described as occurring in the D2 unit and resulting in one fatality and one hospitalization. One suicide by hanging, that of Stephen Prochaska, was recorded on 21 January 2025. The causes of death for most of the other 55 individuals are categorized in GPS records as “unknown/pending” (cause category 6); decedents ranged in age from 33 to 86.The facility carried a heavy legacy of violence and investigatory scrutiny that overlapped Harris’s time there. In January 2025, the state settled a lawsuit over the 2020 death of Thomas Henry Giles—who died of smoke inhalation after being left in a burning cell—for $5 million; the same month the Department of Justice investigation into Georgia prisons highlighted the multiple attacks preceding the 2024 fatal stabbing of Rodarick Lee Hayes at ASMP. During Harris’s tenure, the facility remained implicated in the broader systemic failures that the DOJ’s 2024 report described as “horrific violence, sexual assaults, and gang‑run prisons” enabled by a “culture of indifference.” The Atlanta Journal‑Constitution’s two‑year investigation, cited in early 2026, documented rampant corruption, massive understaffing, and record homicides across the GDC while officials suppressed information about prison deaths. In February 2026, amid the long‑running Benning v. Oliver litigation over inmate email restrictions, U.S. District Judge Tilman E. Self III held GDC Commissioner Tyrone Oliver in contempt and summoned him to a hearing in Macon; the judge called the department’s defiance of a court order “shocking” and “unbelievable” and asserted it acted as if it were “above the law.” Though Harris is not a party to that suit, the contempt proceedings unfolded on her watch as a senior administrator at ASMP.
Litigation
- In Re Paragard IUD Products Liability Litigation (Case No. 1:20-md-02974, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, filed 16 December 2020). Status: pending. Harris is listed as a defendant in this multi-district products‑liability proceeding; GPS records do not indicate any correctional‑context connection or disposition date.
Sources
- GPS intelligence records — personnel profile for Latasha M. Harris, including position history, salary data, and aggregated death counts per facility.
- GPS death‑incident records — individual entries for the 60 decedents attributed to Harris’s tenure at Augusta State Medical Prison.
- GPS intel reports and event logs — allegations and legal events tied to ASMP, including the Benning v. Oliver contempt proceedings, the January 2025 settlement of the Giles lawsuit, and the DOJ’s Hayes finding.
- Atlanta Journal‑Constitution — multiple articles cited in GPS intelligence, covering prison homicides, the $5 million Giles settlement, the DOJ investigation, the two‑year probe of GDC, and the federal contempt hearing.
- U.S. Department of Justice — 2024 report on violence, sexual assault, and gang control in Georgia prisons.
- Court records (via CourtListener) — In Re Paragard IUD Products Liability Litigation, docket No. 1:20-md-02974, GAND.
Positions Held
| Title | Facility | Tenure |
|---|---|---|
| DEPUTY WARDEN | AUGUSTA STATE MEDICAL PRISON | 2025-01-01 → present |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL UNIT MANAGER | 2018-01-01 → 2024-12-31 | |
| CSM CORRECTIONAL LIEUTENANT | 2016-01-01 → 2017-12-31 | |
| CORRECTIONS OFFICER (SP) | 2015-01-01 → 2015-12-31 |
Lawsuits as defendant
| Case # | Court | Filed | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1:20-md-02974 | GAND | 2020-12-16 | pending |
Deaths attributed during tenure
60 people died at facilities under Harris, Latasha M's leadership.
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