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California · County seat: San Rafael · Checked 2026-08-23

Marin County

The jail, the sheriff who runs it, and the judges who decide who sits inside. Every fact below comes from a named public record. Anything not yet sourced is marked still needed rather than guessed.

The Detention Center

Marin County Jail

Source: Marin County Sheriff's Office — Custody Division · checked 2026-08-23

Transparency rating

6/10Partial

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Marin 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.

Since then

  • No expansion found. The county reported approximately $8 million committed across nine Capital Improvement Projects at the jail over five years, including a $2.4 million project to remove ligature points.

The Sheriff

Sheriff Jamie Scardina

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

Source: Marin County Sheriff's Office — Executive Staff · checked 2026-08-23

The Judges

The judicial assignments page names the Presiding Judge (Courtroom A, civil), the Assistant Presiding Judge (Courtroom F, criminal felony supervision) and one commissioner (Courtroom O, child support). It does not identify an arraignment or bail department.

Superior Court of California, County of Marin — Presiding Judge

  • Stephen Freccero

Superior Court of California, County of Marin — Assistant Presiding Judge (supervises criminal law)

  • Geoffrey Howard

Superior Court of California, County of Marin — Commissioner

  • Janet Frankel
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.

Notes on the record

What California law requires

Marin County posts a death-in-custody page.

Posts 7 of 7

The page is here. Marin publishes each disclosure as a separate 'In Custody Death – Legal Mandates' press-release article rather than as one consolidated page; there is no index page for them. Each article answers the seven statutory items in numbered order. The most recent, published June 16, 2026 as a PDF (https://marinsheriff.gov/assets/pdf/in-custody-death-legal-mandates.pdf), covers a death on June 12, 2026: Marin County Sheriff's Office, Marin County, B-Pod at Marin County Jail (13 Peter Behr Dr), Caucasian male 66, awaiting arraignment, cause and manner pending Sonoma County Coroner and Novato PD. Earlier disclosures: https://marinsheriff.gov/articles/legal-mandates-in-custody-death (death 8/13/2023, C-Pod, Hispanic male 36, awaiting arraignment), https://marinsheriff.gov/articles/legal-mandates-in-custody-death-1 (10/1/2023, SH-Pod, Caucasian male 21, awaiting trial), https://marinsheriff.gov/articles/in-custody-death-legal-mandates (1/25/2024, F-Pod, Caucasian female 35, awaiting transport to Sonoma County Jail), https://marinsheriff.gov/articles/in-custody-death-legal-mandates-1 (5/30/2024, B-Pod, Caucasian male 43, awaiting trial). In every case the cause and manner are recorded as pending investigation.

  • ✓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

6 people have died in the Marin County jail since 2021.

3 by suicide
0 illness or medical
6 deaths in all, 2016 onward
Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them6 of 6
Most recent death on the state's record2024-05-30

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 Marin 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 Marin 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