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

The Detention Center

Inyo County Jail

Operated byInyo County Sheriff's Office
County publishes a jail nameYes — Inyo County Jail
Jail address550 South Clay Street, Independence, CA 93526
Custody LieutenantShane Scott
Only facilityThe county states the Inyo County Jail is the only correctional facility in the County
CommissaryItems purchasable through commissary only; money orders accepted, no cash, checks or cards
Rated capacity96 beds

Source: Inyo County — Sheriff — Jail · checked 2026-08-23

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✗Who is in custody — not published
✗Beds and daily population — not published
✓What it costs taxpayers
✗Deaths in custody — not published
✗PREA audits — not published
✗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 Inyo 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
Beds96 in the state rated capacity file. Not published on the county's own site.

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Stephanie J. Rennie

Office established1866, as Sheriff and Tax Collector
CoronerInyo County lists a separate Coroner department (contact Jason Molinar, 220 East Post Street, Lone Pine); the Sheriff's own page describes the office's duties as public safety, custodial management, court services, civil process, search and rescue and animal care, and does not claim the coroner function
Cross-checkCalifornia State Sheriffs' Association directory lists Stephanie Rennie for Inyo

Still needed

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

Source: Inyo County — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-23

The Judges

Two-judge court sitting in Independence (Departments 1 and 3) and Bishop (Department 4). The court publishes no separate judicial-officers page and names no dedicated arraignment or bail department.

Superior Court of California, County of Inyo — Presiding Judge

Susanne M. Rizo

Superior Court of California, County of Inyo — Judge

Stephen M. Place

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

The jail page describes visiting, mail and commissary rules but publishes no bed count, no daily population, no fee schedule and no bail guidance.
The county's Sheriff pages link the Sun Ridge Citizen RIMS portal only at https://inyosheriff.citizenrims.com/bulletins (bulletins). An /incarcerated-people path on that host responds, but the county does not link it and its contents render only in JavaScript, so no published roster is credited.
Budget is recorded 'yes' on the CAO Recommended Budget, published in PDF and in an interactive form; the sheriff and jail appear as budget units inside the county budget book rather than on a standalone detention budget page.
Inyo lists Coroner as its own department, separate from the Sheriff — unusual among California counties.
No BSCC inspection report is posted on the county's own site.
Five-member Board of Supervisors, elected by district.

What California law requires

We could not find a death-in-custody page for Inyo County.

No page found

No in-custody death reporting page was located. Checked https://www.inyocounty.us/services/sheriff, https://www.inyocounty.us/services/sheriff/jail, https://www.inyocounty.us/services/sheriff/policies, https://www.inyocounty.us/services/sheriff/media-press-releases, https://www.inyocounty.us/services/coroner, and the county's own site search at https://www.inyocounty.us/search/node?keys=in-custody+death and https://www.inyocounty.us/search/node?keys=2761 — both returned 'Your search yielded no results.' https://www.inyosheriff.org/ returns HTTP 403 and could not be read. A page may exist somewhere we did not look. If you know of one, tell us and we will correct this.

—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

1 people have died in the Inyo County jail since 2016.

0 by suicide

1 illness or medical

1 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them0 of 1

Most recent death on the state's record2016-12-24

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 Inyo 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 Inyo 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