Mims, Charles Michael

Tenure Summary

Charles Michael Mims entered the Georgia Department of Corrections in 2007 as a correctional officer at Pulaski State Prison, returned there as a sergeant in 2012, and moved up through supervision at Telfair State Prison (lieutenant, 2016), Dodge State Prison (captain, 2017–2018) and Valdosta State Prison (unit manager 2019; deputy warden 2020). He served as deputy warden at Central State Prison in 2021 and at Wilcox State Prison in 2022, was promoted to Warden 1 at Wilcox for 2023 and 2024, held a split Wilcox/Smith warden assignment in early 2025, and has been warden at Smith State Prison since July 16, 2025, per GPS position records.

Per the authoritative GPS figures, 46 deaths are attributed to facilities during his leadership-tier tenures: 28 at Wilcox, 8 at Valdosta, 6 at Central, and 4 at Smith. The individual decedents named below are drawn from a capped, most-recent sample of records and do not by themselves establish those totals. On his watch at Wilcox, coroner records document multiple in-custody homicides, two hangings and a series of drug-toxicity deaths. He is named as a defendant in two federal cases, one still pending.

What happened on their watch

Valdosta State Prison — Deputy Warden, 2020 (8 deaths). Three are documented in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Georgia prison homicide list as stabbings: Prince Blige (2/12/2020), Orvonta Casmir Tillman (6/16/2020), and Bobby Lane Carpenter (9/9/2020). Four others — Michael Lee Vaughn (1/11/2020), Shannon Small (9/1/2020), Brandon Omar Weaver (12/3/2020), Johnny Claude Mitchell (12/5/2020) — carry a "Suicide" coding that comes from GDC's own classification, released to the UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project under an open records request and not an autopsy finding, per the dataset provenance. Gary Thomas Keown (11/14/2020) was GDC-coded natural. The federal case over Hakeem Williams's February 2022 stabbing at Valdosta, in which a judge later sanctioned GDC for destroying video evidence, postdates Mims's posting there.

Central State Prison — Deputy Warden, 2021 (6 deaths). Joshua Carl Lester (7/28/2021) died of a stab wound to the chest per the AJC homicide list. GDC's own coding lists Michael Allen Stegall (12/6/2021) and Adam Clint West (4/6/2021) as suicides, and Matthew James Colozzi (8/1/2021), Joseph Dewayne Hamby (6/19/2021) and Demetrius Richardson (4/24/2021) as undetermined. AJC's list, citing DOJ findings, separately documents the stabbing deaths of Hollis Alan Bryant and Marquis L. Johnson at Central; the input does not date those deaths relative to Mims's tenure.

Wilcox State Prison — Deputy Warden 2022; Warden 2023–July 2025 (28 deaths). Four deaths fall in the deputy-warden year, including a homicide documented by the AJC (James Forest Williams, 10/3/2022; blunt and sharp force injuries). During his wardenship, Wilcox County Coroner Janice B. Brown's records document five homicides — Arthur Jerome Williams (7/19/2024), Mariol Juante Rawls (8/27/2024), Rodney Whatley (10/5/2024), Daylyne Collins (4/20/2025), Dominique Cornelius Cole (6/8/2025), the last by blunt force and strangulation. Ian Rashod Henry (6/22/2025) is a documented source conflict: the coroner ruled suicide by hanging, while GPS records retain a homicide classification based on an inmate report. Two hangings occurred — Darrius Jerrod Zanders (5/5/2025), whose GBI autopsy confirmed hanging but was not certified until eleven months later, and Raymond Trey Moody (3/11/2025), manner still pending; the Zanders coroner report states he had asked staff for help the day before. Six deaths were drug-toxicity/overdose rulings, most involving methamphetamine or the synthetic cannabinoid MDMB-4en-PINACA (Woodland 2023, Leggett 2023, Cotton 2023, Degraft 2024, Grimes 2024, Hogan 2024). The remainder were coroner-ruled natural deaths, ages 38 to 78.

Smith State Prison — Warden since 2025 (4 deaths). John Jacobs (10/25/2025, 77) died of sepsis-related cardiorespiratory arrest; his coroner record notes a process anomaly in which the initial coroner released the body without informing the deputy coroner, who then subpoenaed the full hospital chart and wrote that in-custody deaths warrant independent review. Nicholas Shafer (2/8/2026, 24) is recorded as a homicide; a GPS user report states he had been beaten with hands and feet bound and an object in his mouth, and had recently transferred from ASMP to Baldwin to Smith. Dwayne Eric Albritton (3/12/2026, 65) and Dreeonnie Lee Hart (5/14/2026, 25) complete the tally. Facility-level context: AJC describes Smith as among the state's most understaffed and violent prisons, roughly two-thirds of officer posts unfilled, and documents a contraband scheme run by inmate Nathan Weekes alleged to have directed three murders from inside; a Tattnall County grand jury indicted former warden Brian Adams — a predecessor, not Mims — on six felony counts in May 2026, allegations that remain allegations. An April 1, 2026 altercation at Smith triggered a system-wide GDC lockdown.

Litigation

• Collins v. Jones, No. 5:25-cv-00451 (M.D. Ga.), filed 10/15/2025 — pending; Mims listed as a defendant. The input does not describe the claims.
• Daker v. Oliver Filing Restriction Per 59 Order, No. 1:25-cv-03191 (N.D. Ga.), filed 6/6/2025, terminated 3/30/2026 — Mims listed as a defendant.

Sources

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Georgia prison homicide list and contraband/understaffing reporting (Wilcox, Valdosta, Central, Smith, Telfair entries), including material attributed to DOJ findings
• Wilcox County Coroner Janice B. Brown — summary case reports (2022–2025 Wilcox deaths)
• Tattnall County coroner records (Deputy Coroner Daniel Bennett) — John Jacobs, 2025-084
• GBI/DOFS autopsy ME-25-40336 (Darrius Jerrod Zanders), obtained via ORR R000885-072526
• UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project custodial mortality dataset — GDC's own cause coding, 2015–2021 (obtained by open records request)
• GDC official mortality reports (CY2024; January 2025 release)
• CourtListener dockets for Collins v. Jones and Daker v. Oliver
• WRDW, WTOC, 13WMAZ, WGXA, The Georgia Virtue, In These Times — facility intel reports at Valdosta, Telfair, Smith, Central and GDCP
• GPS death reports and GDC Office of Professional Standards investigation notices

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Sep 13, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.