Perry, James Kevin

Tenure Summary

James Kevin Perry held correctional administration and custody leadership posts in Georgia from 2015 onward, according to GPS position and salary records: correctional administration in 2015, correctional assistant superintendent in 2016, deputy warden from 2017 through 2020, Warden 2 in 2021–2022, and Warden 3 from 2023 into 2025. GPS records attribute one death to a facility-leadership tenure held by Perry: Joshua Cain Phillips, 43, who died on November 22, 2023, at Augusta State Medical Prison while Perry held the Warden 3 title there. The Richmond County Coroner's Office summary lists Phillips’s cause of death as natural, from acute myeloblastic leukemia. GPS court-record indexing also lists two federal lawsuits in which Perry is named as a defendant; both were terminated, and neither shows a recorded payout in the input.

What happened on their watch

Early career, 2015–2020. GPS records list Perry as “CORRECTION ADMINISTRATION” in 2015, “CORRECTIONAL ASST. SUPT” in 2016, and “DEPUTY WARDEN” from 2017 through 2020. No facility is specified for these postings, and no facility-leadership deaths are attributed to them.

Warden 2, 2021–2022. Perry’s Warden 2 records for 2021 and 2022 do not list a specific facility, and GPS records attribute no deaths to these yearly postings. During this period, on March 14, 2022, Mcclinton v. Berry was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia; GPS records include Perry as a defendant. The case terminated on February 14, 2025, with no payout amount recorded.

Warden 3, 2023–2025, and Augusta State Medical Prison. The only facility-specific Warden 3 posting tied to a death in the GPS record is November 22, 2023, at Augusta State Medical Prison. That is the date Joshua Cain Phillips, 43, died; the Richmond County Coroner’s Office summary, issued in 2026, lists natural cause, acute myeloblastic leukemia. That death accounts for the one Augusta State Medical Prison death attributed to Perry. The record also shows a separate one-day Augusta State Medical Prison Warden 3 posting on August 27, 2026, with no death attributed.

Broader intel records in the GPS file, drawn from Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporting and DOJ findings, describe allegations concerning Augusta State Medical Prison outside that attributed death: a claim that Thomas Henry Giles was left in a smoke-filled cell in October 2020 and died, a claim that Jimmy Lucero was placed in solitary without required medical checks and starved in 2016, and a claim that Rodarick Lee Hayes was attacked multiple times before his May 2024 stabbing death, with a correctional officer charged. These are source allegations tied to Augusta State Medical Prison generally, and they are not included in the single death attributed to Perry’s facility-lead tenure in the input. The 2024 U.S. Department of Justice report describing GDC-wide violence, sexual assaults, and gang-run prisons was issued while Perry held a Warden 3 title in 2024, though the record does not assign him to a specific facility for that year.

Litigation

• Danenberg v. Perry, No. 1:24-cv-00006, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, filed January 17, 2024; terminated July 8, 2024; no outcome amount recorded in GPS data.
• Mcclinton v. Berry, No. 5:22-cv-00109, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, filed March 14, 2022; terminated February 14, 2025; no outcome amount recorded in GPS data.

Sources

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — homicide list investigation of Georgia prison deaths, including Augusta State Medical Prison allegations
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — “Prison system failures cost Georgia taxpayers millions,” reporting on Augusta State Medical Prison deaths and settlements
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution — federal judge contempt hearing reporting, covering GDC non-compliance and the DOJ report
• U.S. Department of Justice — 2024 investigation and report on Georgia Department of Corrections violence, sexual assaults, and gang-run prisons
• Richmond County Coroner’s Office — ORR summary for Joshua Cain Phillips, case 23-AC00934
• U.S. District Court dockets via CourtListener — Danenberg v. Perry and Mcclinton v. Berry
• GPS records — salary and position data, deaths attributed by facility, intel reports, and facility intel events

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Aug 30, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.