Stokes, David

Tenure Summary

David Stokes’s GPS personnel record traces a path from correctional officer at Coastal State Prison in 2013 and 2015, to sergeant at Coastal in 2016, and through lieutenant postings into 2022. He held Long Unit posts from 2019, including Assistant Superintendent from January 2019 to February 15, 2024, then correctional superintendent/superintendent roles in 2024. Stokes became Warden at Central State Prison on December 16, 2024, and held that post until May 31, 2026. Effective June 1, 2026, Commissioner Tyrone Oliver reassigned him to Warden at Coastal State Prison, according to GPS event records.

GPS attributes 15 deaths to Stokes’s facility-leadership tenure records: 11 at Central State Prison, 2 at Coastal State Prison, and 2 at Long Unit. One lawsuit appears in the GPS defendant record — Pugh v. Fleming, No. 1:24-cv-02733 (N.D. Ga.), filed June 21, 2024, and terminated August 9, 2024. Georgia DOAS settlement ledger entries record facility-level payouts tied to Coastal State and Central State, including a $600,000 payout for a 2022 Coastal State incident linked to a documented death; the ledger entries are not identified as individual judgments against Stokes.

What happened on their watch

Long Unit
During Stokes’s Assistant Superintendent tenure, GPS records list Charles E. Daniels, 51, died August 24, 2020. The record notes that GDC coded the death as natural in data obtained by the UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project. Under Stokes’s 2024 correctional superintendent posting, Cameron Ryan Paquette, 43, died February 13, 2024. According to the Long County Coroner death-investigation report and GBI Coastal Lab autopsy, Paquette’s cause of death was hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, manner natural; he collapsed during a GDC work detail and was pronounced dead at Wayne Memorial Hospital.

Central State Prison
Stokes became Warden on December 16, 2024. GPS records list 11 deaths attributed to that tenure, beginning with Brandon Jamal Pool, 38, on December 29, 2024, and continuing through Michael Lane Brooks, 77, on April 19, 2026. Many of those entries carry no narrative cause in GPS records. Official GDC January 2025 mortality data listed Matthew Maddox’s death as “cerebral herniation due to extremely high BP,” according to GPS provenance notes. GPS-sourced reports describe Joseph Hamm’s October 2025 death as an accidental opiate overdose, Miguel Angel Duran’s March 2026 death as a reported suicide in the segregation unit, and Ricky Eugene Rogers’ April 2025 entry with the note “natural/drug OD (C-bldg).” Those GPS reports are not official GDC determinations.

During the same Central State period, 13WMAZ reported that three former guards were accused of beating an inmate in March 2025, and that a guard faced charges in December 2025 after allegedly falsely imprisoning four DFCS employees. The Georgia Department of Corrections confirmed a January 2026 inmate fight at Central State that left one inmate hospitalized and opened an investigation, according to GPS event records.

Coastal State Prison
Stokes was reassigned to Warden at Coastal State Prison effective June 1, 2026. GPS records attribute two deaths to his Coastal State wardenship: Ronald Tyrone Waller, 57, on June 10, 2026, and Bobby Clinton Biggs, 77, on June 25, 2026. Both are logged under cause category 6 with no notes. The facility he inherited had been graded 70 by the Georgia Department of Public Health in April 2026; The Georgia Virtue reported inspectors citing live roaches, a dead mouse in mop water, mold, improper food temperatures, and broken equipment. WTOC reported worker and inmate complaints in February 2026 of a human rights crisis, food withholding, unsanitary conditions, and lockdowns lasting seven to ten days without showers. Those condition reports predate Stokes’s June 2026 posting.

Litigation

• Pugh v. Fleming, No. 1:24-cv-02733 (N.D. Ga.), filed June 21, 2024, terminated August 9, 2024. GPS records list no outcome amount. Source: CourtListener.

Sources

• GPS personnel, deaths, intel, and event records
• CourtListener docket — Pugh v. Fleming
• Long County Coroner death-investigation report 91-010-24 and GBI Coastal Lab case 2024-6000957
• UCLA Law Behind Bars Data Project custodial mortality dataset (GDC 2015–2021)
• Georgia Department of Corrections January 2025 mortality data
• 13WMAZ
• WTOC
• The Georgia Virtue
• Georgia Department of Public Health inspection records via GPS
• Georgia DOAS Risk Management settlement ledger via open records

Synthesized by GPS Intelligence System on Aug 16, 2026 from positions, attributed deaths, lawsuits, intel reports, and news mentions in the public corpus. The supporting data tables follow below.