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

The Detention Center

Auburn Jail; South Placer Jail (with South Placer Minimum Security)

Operated byPlacer County Sheriff's Office, Corrections Division
County publishes a jail nameYes — 'Our Jails' page names Auburn Jail, South Placer Jail and South Placer Minimum
Auburn Jail address2775 Richardson Drive, Auburn, CA 95603
South Placer Jail address11801 Go For Broke Road, Roseville, CA 95678 (Santucci Justice Center)
South Placer Minimum Security11701 Go For Broke Road
Rated capacity (BSCC file, not county)1,077 across five Type II units
Rated capacity1,077 beds across 5 facilities

Source: Placer County — Our Jails · 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 — not published
✗Independent inspection — not published
✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
✓How to post bond
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Placer 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 builtAuburn Jail opened July 1985; South Placer Jail phase one largely completed 2012 (construction began 2008)
Original costAuburn Jail $4.5 million; 1992 Auburn housing addition $3.5 million; South Placer Jail cost not published on the county site
Paid for byAuburn Jail funded by Proposition 4; the 260-bed 1992 addition funded through Propositions 52 and 96
BedsAuburn Jail originally rated 108, plus a 260-bed addition (1992); South Placer Jail rated capacity 420, opened in phases starting at 240 beds; full build-out planned at 980

Since then

1992 — 260-bed housing wing added at Auburn Jail ($3.5 million, Props 52 and 96)
2012 — South Placer Jail phase one completed, ~200,000 sq ft, rated 420; phased opening began FY 2013-14 with 240 beds
May 31, 2014 — Auburn Minimum Security Barracks (WWII-era 1941 buildings, 160 beds) closed and inmates moved to South Placer
Planned build-out of South Placer to 319,000 sq ft and 980 inmates

The Sheriff

Sheriff Wayne Woo

Title as publishedSheriff-Coroner-Marshal
Also serves asCounty Coroner and Marshal — the county page states the Sheriff's Office 'provides jail services, coroner's services, court security, and marshal duties to the entire county'
Took officeElected Sheriff in 2022; 29th Sheriff of Placer County; Undersheriff 2017-2022
UndersheriffShayne Wright

Still needed

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

Source: Placer County — Sheriff Wayne Woo · checked 2026-08-23

The Judges

The court's Judicial Officer Assignments page lists departments by subject (Criminal - Felony, Criminal Misd./Traffic, Criminal Misd. DV, Criminal Misd. DUI) but does not name a dedicated arraignment or bail department, and does not say which officer sets bail.

Superior Court of California, County of Placer — Presiding Judge

Jeffrey Penney

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

Suzanne Gazzaniga

Superior Court of California, County of Placer — Judges

Melissa Begley
Raymonn DeJesus
Leon Dixson
Suzanne Gazzaniga
Trisha Hirashima
Glenn Holley
Garen Horst
Todd Irby
Michael Jones
Jeffrey Penney
Shani Roark

Superior Court of California, County of Placer — Commissioners

Mariam Baxley
Christine Dehr
Albert Erkel
Michael Jacques

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

Placer is one of the more complete AB 2761 postings found in this group: a dedicated county page, a standard seven-field form, and PDFs for every listed death.
The Sheriff's Office is Sheriff-Coroner-Marshal, so the same elected office runs the jails and determines cause of death in coroner cases.
The FY 2025-26 adopted Sheriff-Coroner-Marshal budget carries separate cost centers: Sheriff Auburn Jail $44,705,718 and Sheriff South Placer Jail $46,580,266.
Fees: the Inmate Rules & Information page publishes a 'Standard Fee Structure' table for Smart Deposit/Access Corrections deposit transactions ($3.95-$11.95 by deposit band), but no per-minute phone rate, no video-visit rate and no commissary price list. Phone service is by ICSolutions, collect calls only, with no published rate. Marked 'no'.
No PREA audit report and no Placer County Grand Jury detention report were found on placer.ca.gov; the county sitemap has no grand jury entry (Placer grand jury material is hosted by the Superior Court, not the county).
The state's death-in-custody file records 14 Placer jail deaths (4 suicide, 7 natural, 14 unconvicted).
Five-member Board of Supervisors, elected by district; meets the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 175 Fulweiler Avenue, Auburn.

What California law requires

Placer County posts a death-in-custody page.

Posts 7 of 7

The page is here. A county page titled '10008 PC — In Custody Deaths' states the Sheriff's Office is required to post within 10 days and links six dated PDF releases (01/04/2023, 06/24/2023, 11/01/2023, 12/24/2024, 06/14/2025, 08/18/2025). Each PDF is a numbered form carrying all seven required items — the 08/18/2025 release reads: Agency: Placer County Sheriff's Office; County: Placer County; Facility: Sutter Roseville Medical Center; Location: Emergency Room; Race: Hispanic; Gender: Male; Age: 30; Date of Death: 08/18/2025; Custody Status: Sentenced; Manner/Means: Natural.

✓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

14 people have died in the Placer County jail since 2016.

4 by suicide

7 illness or medical

14 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them14 of 14

Most recent death on the state's record2025-08-18

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 Placer 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 Placer 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