Jaden Gates: Disability and the Limits of Jail  

For months, 24-year-old Jaden Gates has been held in the Fayette County Jail on charges arising from an encounter with two juvenile girls on a Peachtree City multi-use path.

His mother, Susan Gates, says her son has the reasoning and judgment of a child, does not understand why he remains in jail, and needs specialized treatment that she has been unable to find.

Peachtree City police say Gates’ developmental disabilities are unmistakable and have shaped how officers have responded to him for years. They also say the April incident was part of an increasingly serious pattern of sexual behavior in public—one that had progressed to involve children.

Jail officials say they have made unusual accommodations to keep Gates safe, fed, connected with his family, and occupied while he awaits another court-ordered competency evaluation.

All of those things can be true at once.

The result is a painful case involving two girls who should never have been placed in that situation, a developmentally disabled adult who may not be capable of understanding the proceedings against him, a mother who acknowledges that her son’s conduct was wrong, and a justice system with few good places to send someone like him.

An encounter involving two girls

Peachtree City police arrested Gates on April 6 after two juvenile girls reported that he exposed himself during an encounter on a multi-use path.

The girls recorded part of the incident and documented the number of the golf cart Gates was driving, helping officers identify him and arrest him shortly afterward.

Jail records list two counts each of enticing a child for indecent purposes, cruelty to children, and child molestation, along with a public indecency charge. Gates has not been convicted of those charges.

Lt. Chris Hyatt of the Peachtree City Police Department said the case did not arise in isolation.

Police have documented approximately six incidents involving Gates since he became an adult, Hyatt said. Several involved exposure, masturbation, or other sexual conduct in public.

Earlier encounters were often handled less restrictively. Officers sometimes returned Gates to his mother. In other cases, complainants declined to prosecute after recognizing his intellectual limitations. Police also previously used a city ordinance citation before later arresting him on a state public indecency charge.

Hyatt said officers knew they were not dealing with a person of ordinary intellectual capacity.

“It’s not one that you have to spend a lot of time identifying whether or not you’ve—you’re dealing with somebody in full capacity,” Hyatt said.

Officers took Gates’ disability into account, he said, using their prior rapport with him and attempting to de-escalate encounters. At least one officer tried to explain that private sexual behavior could not take place in a public setting.

But Hyatt said police became increasingly concerned about both the frequency and seriousness of the behavior.

“We still have that foremost responsibility where it’s the safety and protection of the community as a whole, especially juvenile children as well,” Hyatt said.

Following the April incident, investigators conducted forensic interviews with the girls and reviewed the case before presenting charges to judges, Hyatt said. Once charges were filed, decisions about bond, competency, and continued detention moved beyond the police department and into the court system.

A mother asking for treatment

Susan Gates does not say that her son’s behavior was acceptable.

“I know what happened is not appropriate,” she said.

But she believes jail cannot address the developmental condition underlying his behavior.

Susan said Gates has Fragile X syndrome and global apraxia affecting his speech. She said he struggles with impulse control and does not process age, time, consequences, or social boundaries as other adults do.

She described an evaluation from his school years that placed his intellectual functioning at approximately the level of an 8-year-old. Although his speech improved through therapy, she said his ability to understand consequences has changed little.

“He doesn’t understand age. He doesn’t understand time. He doesn’t understand, like, consequences for how serious something is,” Susan said. “He just doesn’t process that the way that you and I would process.”

Susan said Gates can write his name and address but cannot meaningfully read or write. He focuses intensely on machinery, trucks, and a limited range of preferred interests and foods.

She said he does not understand how long he has been incarcerated. After months in jail, he has told relatives he believes he has been there for about five days.

When asked whether Gates understands why he is in jail, Susan’s answer was direct.

“He has no idea,” she said.

Susan wants Gates placed somewhere that can address his sexual behavior, intellectual disability, and need for close supervision.

“Get him into, like, a facility that will help him with this,” she said. “Putting him in jail isn’t solving the problem. It won’t make him better.”

Previously found incompetent

Gates had already undergone a competency evaluation in an earlier public indecency case.

Susan said the evaluation was conducted in December 2025 and the findings were returned in January 2026. According to Susan, Gates was found incompetent to stand trial, with little indication that his condition would improve enough for him to become competent.

“It came back and said that there’s no evidence that he could become competent in the future,” she said.

Competency to stand trial does not determine whether someone committed an alleged act. It concerns whether the defendant can understand the nature of the proceedings, comprehend his own position in the case, and assist his attorney in preparing a defense. Those are among the questions included in Georgia’s standard competency evaluation order.

Susan described an earlier court appearance that she said revealed how little Gates understood.

When the judge asked Gates whether his attorney was present, Gates said no.

“Well, who’s sitting next to you?” the judge asked, according to Susan.

“My friend,” Gates answered.

The judge then asked Gates whether he knew why he was in court.

“No,” he said.

Susan said Gates’ limitations also make it difficult for him to help an attorney reconstruct events. He may recall disconnected details, become overwhelmed when asked repeated questions, or eventually tell someone what he believes that person wants to hear so the questioning will stop.

“He has to be able to help his attorney, and he’s not going to be able to,” Susan said.

A new competency evaluation was requested in May for the current felony case. Hancock said such court orders typically call for the evaluation to be completed within 90 days, although the jail does not conduct or schedule it.

The Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities conducts competency evaluations in response to court orders. The department, not the sheriff’s office, schedules the evaluator and provides the findings to the court.

Susan does not understand why a new evaluation is necessary so soon after the earlier finding, but jail officials said each court case proceeds through its own orders and legal process.

A life built around familiar routines

Before his arrest, Gates had routines that allowed him to feel useful and independent, even though he did not fully understand employment, money, or adult responsibilities.

He drove his golf cart to a local nonprofit organization, where workers allowed him to help sort donated items. He was not an employee, but he called it going to work.

“It gave him a sense of purpose,” Susan said.

On Sundays, Gates sometimes drove himself to church. Susan said she does not participate in organized religion, but attending church was something her son chose for himself.

He had previously attended McIntosh High School in specialized classes. Through a school program, he also performed work at a nearby church, including cleaning windows.

In jail, Susan said Gates talks about missing church. He has also worried that God is upset with him, prompting his mother and sister to reassure him that he is still loved.

Those routines did not prevent his conduct from becoming dangerous to others. But to his mother, they show a fuller picture of a man whose life was not organized around harming people.

“Jaden is not a bad person,” she said. “He is struggling on how to deal with this, and we need somebody professional to help because we don’t know how to navigate that.”

Susan said the family has developed a plan for Gates if he is released. His golf cart is gone. She changed her work schedule so she is home Monday through Thursday. Relatives and family friends have offered to supervise him when she works, and her parents have offered to house him temporarily.

“Jaden just has to have somebody with him right now,” she said.

She has also considered medical treatment that might reduce his sexual impulses, but said she cannot pursue that option while he remains in jail and unavailable for an appointment.

“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get him help,” Susan said, “so that this doesn’t happen to him again, or it doesn’t happen to somebody else again.”

Concerns inside the jail

Susan said she became alarmed by what she saw during visits.

Gates eats only a narrow range of foods and typically refuses water, she said. At home, she kept Gatorade or Propel available because he does not understand that refusing fluids can make him seriously ill.

She said she observed signs she associated with dehydration and believed he had lost substantial weight. She also worried that he had little mental stimulation because he cannot meaningfully read or write.

Susan obtained approval to bring him picture books featuring construction equipment, farm machinery, and other heavy vehicles. When Gates said he had not received them, she became concerned they had been lost or withheld. The Citizen asked the Sheriff about these.

Susan also asked for small rubber pop-it toys that could give him something repetitive and tactile to do. 

Major Erin Hancock, who oversees the jail, said staff located the books after learning they had been placed in the jail chaplain’s mailbox while he was away at training. Staff reviewed the books for staples and other safety concerns, approved them, and planned to give them to Gates.

Hancock said the jail also approved the pop-it toys and planned to purchase them itself so staff could ensure they were safe.

Those were among several accommodations made specifically for Gates, she said.

He receives Gatorade and Ensure. Staff gave him extra sandwiches after learning that he would eat them. A staff member helps him use the commissary system, and he has been permitted to order weekly hot meals such as pizza or cheeseburgers even though other detainees in his area do not receive that privilege.

Medical staff placed him on regular weight checks, Hancock said.

“We are aware of that stuff, and we have been working with him,” she said. “There have been other things we’ve been doing to make sure he’s eating.”

Gates is not housed in the jail’s general population. He was initially placed in the infirmary and later moved to a smaller pod that functions as an extension of the medical unit.

He is housed alone but is near other detainees who are not released into the common area at the same time, Hancock said. The arrangement gives him more privileges than the infirmary without exposing him to the risks of general population.

“I wouldn’t want to put somebody like him down in general population because there’s just too many risks,” she said.

Nurses see him at least twice each day, Hancock said, and she was unaware of any violent or major disciplinary incidents involving him.

Susan and Gates’ sister are also allowed to visit him in person on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Hancock said that is a special accommodation because detainees in that unit would ordinarily receive video visits and would generally be responsible for arranging them through the jail system themselves.

“We know with him, we understand,” Hancock said. “So we’re trying.”

Hancock also addressed Susan’s concern that Gates might decline to shower if given a choice. Staff encourage daily hygiene, she said, but do not want to create an unnecessary physical confrontation. When needed, they try to find an officer or nurse with whom Gates has a good rapport and ask that person to persuade him.

The jail’s response does not mean Susan’s fears are imaginary. Her son remains confined in a place built for detention, not developmental therapy. But Hancock’s account shows staff have taken multiple steps beyond ordinary jail procedures to accommodate him.

What the jail cannot decide

Fayette County Sheriff Barry Babb said Gates was placed within the infirmary system because medical staff determined general population was not appropriate. The jail falls under Babb’s overall leadership.

The jail relies on its healthcare provider to evaluate detainees for housing, medication, and daily medical needs, Babb said.

That process is separate from determining whether a defendant is competent to stand trial.

“My job is to hold them and get them to court when it’s time to go to court,” Babb said. “It’s not to make those decisions.”

The sheriff’s office does not decide when Gates’ competency evaluation will occur, whether he receives bond, whether he can be restored to competency, or where he should ultimately be placed.

Babb said the jail frequently houses people with mental illnesses, developmental disabilities, autism, brain injuries, and other conditions that make ordinary incarceration especially difficult.

“Instead of being where they need to be, they wind up in our jail, and none of us want to keep them,” Babb said. “But the system runs its course.”

The Fayette County Jail was holding more than 330 people when Babb and Hancock were interviewed. Its infirmary has 25 beds, requiring the jail to use overflow areas when medical and mental health needs exceed that capacity.

Babb said county jails across Georgia have become default holding places for people whose needs extend far beyond what a jail was designed to provide.

“We’re just as frustrated as a lot of people are,” he said.

The question beyond guilt or innocence

The criminal case will determine whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to prove the charges against Gates and whether he is legally capable of participating in his defense.

Those questions matter.

So do the experiences of the two girls. Gates’ disability does not erase what they encountered, and compassion for him should not require minimizing the conduct that led to his arrest.

But even if Gates is again found incompetent, another question remains: Where should a developmentally disabled adult go when he repeatedly engages in sexual behavior that places others at risk, yet may not understand punishment, legal proceedings, or the consequences of what he has done?

His mother could not find an effective program before the April incident. Police attempted warnings, education, citations, family release, and increasingly serious charges. Jail staff are now improvising accommodations within a secure detention facility.

None of those responses constitutes the specialized treatment Susan says her son needs.

Hyatt described the challenge as larger than one family.

“It’s a tough, tough burden for one to bear,” he said, particularly for a working parent trying to provide both care and basic necessities.

Susan carries that burden while also acknowledging its limits.

“If I felt like my son was a threat, I’d be the first person there saying, ‘No. Do not let him out of here,’” she said.

She does want him out of jail. But she also wants supervision, treatment, and safeguards that prevent another child—or anyone else—from being placed in the same position again.

For now, Gates remains in the Fayette County Jail, waiting for a system built to decide criminal responsibility to determine what it can do with a man who may not understand the question.