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

The Detention Center

Modoc County Jail

Operated byModoc County Sheriff's Office
County publishes a jail nameYes — 'Modoc County Jail', named in the 2024-25 Civil Grand Jury Final Report posted on the county site
Jail address102 South Court Street, Alturas, CA (same address as Sheriff's administration)
Sheriff's website stateThe entire modocsheriff.us subsite (Divisions, Visitation, Corrections) now redirects to a single landing page at countyofmodoc.gov/709; no jail sub-pages resolve
Rated capacity (BSCC file, not county)43 beds, Type II
Replacement jailUnder consideration since 2013; money allocated in 2017 but insufficient at today's costs; State of California would own the facility, which blocks county financing
What was triedhttps://www.modocsheriff.us/ ; /sitemap ; /710/Sheriffs-Office ; /711/Divisions ; /737/Visitation ; /713/I-Want-To ; https://www.countyofmodoc.gov/sitemap ; /614/Sheriff — all resolve to the same landing page
Rated capacity43 beds

Source: Modoc County — 2024-25 Civil Grand Jury Final Report, 'Report on Modoc County Jail' · checked 2026-08-23

Transparency rating

3/10Closed

✓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
✗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 Modoc 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 on any county page (BSCC rated capacity file: 43)

Since then

Replacement facility under consideration since 2013; funds allocated 2017, project stalled — 2024-25 Civil Grand Jury

The Sheriff

Sheriff William "Tex" Dowdy

Title as publishedSheriff (county page is titled "Sheriff - DHP")
Took officeElected January 7, 2019; 21st Modoc County Sheriff, second term
Also serves asNot found — neither the county site nor the Sheriff's pages state that the Sheriff serves as Coroner; the adopted budget book lists a separate 'Coroner' fund alongside 'Sheriff' and 'County Jail'

Still needed

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

Source: Modoc County — Sheriff - DHP · checked 2026-08-23

The Judges

Modoc is a single-judge court. The Court Staff page names only Presiding Judge Wendy J. Dier (appointed 2021) and Court Executive Officer Brandy Malcolm; no commissioner is listed. No published bail/arraignment assignment list was found.

Superior Court of California, County of Modoc — Presiding Judge

Wendy J. Dier

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 Sheriff's Office website has effectively collapsed: every sub-page URL redirects to https://www.countyofmodoc.gov/709/Sheriff---DHP. The only jail information published there is a street address and a 'jail visitation' tile.
The 2024-25 Civil Grand Jury inspected the jail under Penal Code 919(b) and reported that several key areas still lack functional camera coverage, that female-deputy staffing is short, and that mental-health transport costs are rising.
The Grand Jury reported that the BSCC's latest targeted inspection found the Modoc County Jail in compliance with Title 24 Minimum Standards for Local Detention Facilities.
The FY 2024-25 adopted budget book carries a 'DETENTION AND CORRECTION' group with budget units 2210 County Jail, 2230 CDCR-Safekeeper, 2240 Inmate Health, 203 Community Corrections Partnership and 204 Inmate Welfare Fund.
The CDCR-Safekeeper budget unit indicates the county holds state prisoners, but no contract or per-diem rate is published.
A cached copy of an older 'Corrections' page stating a 48-bed capacity was retrieved by one fetch tool; the live URL redirects to the landing page, so that figure is not treated as currently published.
Five-member Board of Supervisors, elected by district to four-year terms; General Law county under Government Code section 25000.

What California law requires

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

No page found

No in-custody death page exists. Searched https://www.modocsheriff.us/ and its full sitemap, https://www.countyofmodoc.gov/sitemap, /709/Sheriff---DHP, /614/Sheriff, /711/Divisions, /941/About-the-Sheriff, and the county Archive Center; no page mentions AB 2761, Penal Code 10008, in-custody death or custodial death. The state's death-in-custody file records 3 Modoc jail deaths. 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

3 people have died in the Modoc County jail since 2016.

2 by suicide

1 illness or medical

3 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them3 of 3

Most recent death on the state's record2019-08-17

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 Modoc 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 Modoc 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