Alameda County, California — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Santa Rita Jail

Operated byAlameda County Sheriff's Office
County publishes a jail nameYes — Santa Rita Jail
Jail address5325 Broder Blvd, Dublin, CA 94568
Capacity field on county facility directoryListed only as '100 +'
Rated capacity3,416 beds

Source: Alameda County Sheriff's Office — Facility Directory · checked 2026-08-23

Transparency rating

6/10Partial

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✓Beds and daily population
✓What it costs taxpayers
✓Deaths in custody
✓PREA audits
✗Independent inspection — not published
✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
✗How to post bond — not published
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Alameda County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-08-23. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
BedsNot found

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez

Title as publishedSheriff/Coroner
Also serves asCounty Coroner — the Sheriff's Office operates the Coroner's Bureau
Took office2023; 23rd Sheriff of Alameda County

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Alameda County Sheriff's Office — About Us · checked 2026-08-23

The Judges

Large multi-judge court; only the Presiding Judge and Assistant Presiding Judge are listed, per the brief. Markman began a two-year term on January 1, 2026. The court posts a full Judicial Directory and Assignments at https://www.alameda.courts.ca.gov/general-information/judicial-directory-and-assignments (effective August 10, 2026) as a PDF whose contents could not be retrieved.

Superior Court of California, County of Alameda — Presiding Judge

Michael Markman

Superior Court of California, County of Alameda — Assistant Presiding Judge

Lupe Garcia

Still needed

The county's bond schedule
Share of the jail population held pretrial
Median time from booking to first appearance

Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-23

The County Commissioners

They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.

What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Sheriff/Coroner Yesenia Sanchez runs both the jail and the Coroner's Bureau.
The PC 10008 report is a single cumulative PDF covering 15 deaths and contains all seven required elements.
PREA audit reports are posted for 2016, 2019 and 2026 alongside annual PREA reports back to 2012.
Detention & Corrections is $387.3M, 57.1% of the Sheriff's FY2026-27 appropriation.
Jail population is posted weekly as point-in-time counts; a rated capacity figure was not found.
Video visiting and phone service run through ViaPath/GTL; the county publishes no rates.
A U.S. Marshals Service intergovernmental agreement covering Alameda County is published by USMS, not by the county.
Board of Supervisors elected by district (five districts).

What California law requires

Alameda County posts a death-in-custody page.

Posts 7 of 7

The page is here. The Public Information Portal cites AB 2761 and Penal Code 10008 and links a single In-Custody Death Report PDF (https://www.alamedasheriff.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/1184/639196182465970000) listing 15 deaths from 1/17/2023 through 6/6/2026, each with agency, facility and housing unit or hospital, age/race/gender, date, custodial status and manner and cause of death — all seven required elements.

✓The agency with custodial responsibility
✓The county where the death occurred
✓The facility — and where inside it
✓Race, gender and age
✓The date of death
✓Custodial status — awaiting arraignment, awaiting trial, or incarcerated
✓Manner and means of death

California Penal Code § 10008, enacted by AB 2761 and in force since January 2023, requires the agency with custodial responsibility to post these seven items on its own website within ten days of a death in custody, and to update them within thirty days if the facts change. California is the only state in the country with this duty. Checked 2026-08-23. This records what is published, nothing more.

The record

49 people have died in the Alameda County jail since 2016.

12 by suicide

18 illness or medical

49 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them42 of 49

Most recent death on the state's record2025-12-17

Deaths: Texas Justice Initiative, the cleaned copy of the Texas Attorney General’s custodial death reports — the state’s own public index carries no cause of death and has not been refreshed since August 2025. Population: Texas Commission on Jail Standards monthly report. Counted, not estimated.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Alameda County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).

How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?

Your VOTE is POWERFUL.

The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.

The sheriff is on your ballot

The county elections office runs the polling place in Alameda County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from the California Secretary of State and vote.gov.

Names verified 2026-08-23 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered