A man died while in custody of the Shelby County Division of Corrections July 22, according to a spokesperson for the Shelby County Mayor's Office, which oversees corrections.
Justin Hardaway, 29, was booked
at the Shelby County Division of Corrections, often called the Penal Farm, on Dec. 18, 2025, according to corrections records.
Those records showed he was at the Penal Farm while awaiting trial, but was moved to a "hospital/medical treatment facility" custody detail on July 22.
According to the Shelby County Mayor's Office, Penal Farm staff noticed Hardaway was in "medical distress" around 4:50 p.m. on July 22 and took him at 5:15 p.m. to Baptist Memorial Hospital for medical attention.
By 5:36 p.m. the same day, Hardaway was declared dead at the hospital.
Hardaway, according to a spokesperson with the mayor's office, was a detainee of the U.S. Marshals Service. According to federal court records, Hardaway was arrested in late November and federally charged with two counts of resisting arrest.
A longer list of state charges were filed in state court earlier in November relating to the same incident.
According to the federal complaint, an officer with the Memphis Police Department attempted to pull him over for missing a rear bumper and having no license plate on his car. The vehicle did not stop for the officer, according to a federal affidavit, and Hardaway drove away "at a high rate of speed" after the car had been damaged.
It was not clear how the car was damaged from either the state or federal affidavits.
Another officer then saw Hardaway's car driving significantly slower, "only reaching speeds of 5 to 15 miles per hour," because of "an apparent malfunction occurring with his vehicle."
Hardaway eventually drove the car until he was behind a vehicle being driven by a Homeland Security Investigations agent, who turned the car's siren and lights on. MPD vehicles then tried to block Hardaway's car in and, according to the federal incident report, Hardaway "used his vehicle to ram three times into the rear bumper" of the HSI agent's car.
Spike strips were eventually deployed and Hardaway's car drove over them. He then ran from the car that was still moving.
"Hardaway's vehicle continued in motion, driverless, northbound on Ford Road, nearly striking approximately 20 children who were exiting a school bus," the federal incident report read.
The car eventually stopped after hitting a home.
Hardaway, on May 13, pleaded guilty to both federal resisting arrest charges. He was set to be sentenced for that plea on Sept. 3, with U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors recommending he "be sentenced at the low end of the advisory guideline range" as part of the plea.
His most recent state court appearance was a May 7 report date which was pushed off for an unspecified amount of time.
Lucas Finton covers crime, policing, jails, the courts and criminal justice policy for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by phone or email: (901)208-3922 and Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com, and followed on X @LucasFinton.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Pretrial inmate at Penal Farm dies, Shelby County Mayor's Office says
