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Jones, Deshawn B
Status: active
Profile written September 6, 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
Deshawn B. Jones began in line staff roles at Arrendale State Prison as a Correctional Officer in 2006 and 2015, then worked as a Social Services Program Manager at Arrendale Transitional Center in 2016. His first facility-lead records are a Correctional Superintendent posting at Atlanta Transitional Center in 2018 and a 2019 Correctional Superintendent record without a facility listed; neither is associated with deaths in the GPS data.
GPS records attribute 132 deaths to his facility-lead tenures: 3 at Rutledge State Prison, 22 at Phillips State Prison, and 107 at Augusta State Medical Prison. The litigation index lists five federal matters associated with Jones as defendant in the Northern District of Georgia — four pending, one terminated.
What happened on their watch
Rutledge State Prison (2020–2022)
Jones’s Rutledge records show him as Correctional Superintendent in 2020 and Warden from December 2020 into 2022. GPS attributes 3 deaths to Rutledge during that leadership tenure. The decedent list includes Curtis Mincey, 74, who died July 22, 2021; GPS records classify the death in its homicide category, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s prison homicides investigation reported blunt force trauma to the head, neck, torso and extremities. GPS separately notes a conflict: GDC’s own coding, obtained by the UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project, lists the death as “Natural.” Harold Edward Brown, 53, died March 5, 2021, with GDC coding as natural, and Boyzie Barnes, 65, died April 30, 2022, with no cause listed. Per the AJC, Curtis Mincey’s sister alleged in a lawsuit that he had mental illness and did not receive appropriate medical or psychological help.Phillips State Prison (2022–2024)
Jones’s Phillips leadership records run from Warden 1 in 2022, through Warden 2 in 2023, to a Warden record ending June 15, 2024. GPS attributes 22 deaths to Phillips during that tenure. Named decedents in the GPS sample include several deaths classified by coroner or medical examiner sources as homicides, including Quafabian Melik McBride, 19 (Sept. 30, 2022), Jacob Daniels, 18 (Aug. 13, 2022), Sidney Neally, 22 (July 18, 2022), Jamal Cymonne Johnson, 32 (June 11, 2022), and Arthur Wimbush, 46 (April 2, 2023). Suicides in the record include James Arthur Smith, 25, Joseph Ray Morrison, 57, William Jason McClure, 45, and Jerry Dewayne Hunnicutt, 38. Jonathan Matthew Rucker, 42, is recorded as a methamphetamine-related death classified as accident/overdose. The AJC has alleged, without naming Jones, that officers arranged for McBride to be brought to a lockdown unit the day he was killed, and that a prisoner named Dave Stone was assaulted in a mental health ward.Augusta State Medical Prison (2024 onward)
Jones appears in Augusta leadership records starting in 2024, including Warden 3 and a Warden record dated June 16, 2024 onward. GPS attributes 107 deaths to Augusta during his leadership tenure. The sample is dominated by natural deaths documented in Richmond County Coroner summaries, such as Henry Ross, 56 (hemorrhagic shock), Robert Bruce Green, 69 (E. coli complications with sepsis), and Alphonso Watts, 54, among many others. The records also include suicides: Stephen Prochaska, 70, died Jan. 21, 2025, by hanging, a cause confirmed by GBI medical examiner records; Jamie Lang Lewis, 53, died June 29, 2024, by hanging; and Milton Cameron, 49, died Sept. 5, 2024, by ligature hanging. Accidents include Darius Dorian Grant, 52, blunt force head trauma following a fall.In 2026, GPS records show Jerry Wayne Merritt, 59, died Jan. 20; a source report says John Jaquis Trimer is accused of stabbing him. Jacobi Alandis Chomicki, 23, died May 22, 2026; a source reported a homicide in the D2 unit, and GDC’s May 2026 mortality report later confirmed the death. Donald Hugh Young is recorded as dying Aug. 5, 2026, with cause unknown.
The AJC has reported Augusta allegations that Thomas Henry Giles was left in a smoke-filled cell and died of smoke inhalation, with the GBI ruling the death a homicide; the state’s $5 million settlement is recorded Jan. 21, 2025, during Jones’s Augusta tenure, though Giles’s death itself occurred in October 2020. AJC reporting also cites a DOJ investigation finding that Rodarick Lee Hayes had been attacked multiple times before his death at Augusta.
Litigation
- Leaphart v. Jones, 1:23-cv-02227, GAND, filed May 17, 2023; terminated March 28, 2024.
- Doe v. Georgia Department of Corrections, 1:23-cv-05578, GAND, filed Dec. 6, 2023; pending.
- Emery v. Holt, 1:24-cv-03486, GAND, filed Aug. 6, 2024; pending.
- Ryhme v. Georgia Department of Corrections, 1:24-cv-04156, GAND, filed Sept. 16, 2024; pending.
- Morgan v. Oliver, 1:25-cv-01700, GAND, filed March 31, 2025; pending.
Sources
- GPS personnel, death attribution, and litigation records
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution — “Ga prison homicides: a list of those killed in Georgia’s prison system”
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution — “Prison system failures cost Georgia taxpayers millions”
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Operation Skyhawk contraband investigation
- Richmond County Coroner’s Office summaries
- Gwinnett County Coroner / GBI Medical Examiner reports
- GDC monthly mortality reports and GDC-released mortality PDFs
- UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project custodial mortality dataset
- CourtListener docket records for the five GAND cases cited above
Positions Held
| Title | Facility | Tenure |
|---|---|---|
| Warden 3 | AUGUSTA STATE MEDICAL PRISON | 2026-08-27 → present |
| WARDEN 3 | AUGUSTA STATE MEDICAL PRISON | 2024-01-01 → present |
| Warden | AUGUSTA STATE MEDICAL PRISON | 2024-06-16 → present |
| Warden | PHILLIPS STATE PRISON | 2024-01-01 → 2024-06-15 |
| Warden 2 | PHILLIPS STATE PRISON | 2023-11-22 → 2023-11-22 |
| WARDEN 2 | PHILLIPS STATE PRISON | 2023-01-01 → 2023-12-31 |
| WARDEN 1 | PHILLIPS STATE PRISON | 2022-01-01 → 2022-12-31 |
| WARDEN 1 | RUTLEDGE STATE PRISON | 2021-01-01 → 2021-12-31 |
| Warden | RUTLEDGE STATE PRISON | 2020-12-01 → 2022-06-30 |
| CORRECTIONAL SUPERINTENDENT | RUTLEDGE STATE PRISON | 2020-01-01 → 2020-12-31 |
| CORRECTIONAL SUPERINTENDENT | 2019-01-01 → 2019-12-31 | |
| CORRECTIONAL SUPERINTENDENT | ATLANTA TRANSITIONAL CENTER | 2018-01-01 → 2018-12-31 |
| CORRECTIONAL ASST. SUPT | 2017-01-01 → 2017-12-31 | |
| SOCIAL SVCS PRGM MGR 3 | ARRENDALE TRANSITIONAL CENTER | 2016-01-01 → 2016-12-31 |
| CORRECTIONS OFFICER (SP) | Arrendale State Prison | 2015-01-01 → 2015-12-31 |
| Correctional Officer | Arrendale State Prison | 2006-01-01 → 2006-12-31 |
Lawsuits as defendant
| Case # | Court | Filed | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1:25-cv-01700 | GAND | 2025-03-31 | pending |
| 1:24-cv-04156 | GAND | 2024-09-16 | pending |
| 1:24-cv-03486 | GAND | 2024-08-06 | pending |
| 1:23-cv-05578 | GAND | 2023-12-06 | pending |
| 1:23-cv-02227 | GAND | 2023-05-17 | terminated |
Deaths attributed during tenure
132 people died at facilities under Jones, Deshawn B's leadership.
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