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

The Detention Center

Sutter County Jail (Main Jail)

Operated bySutter County Sheriff's Office — Jail Division, Corrections Section
County publishes a jail nameYes — 'Sutter County's Main Jail facility' named on the Corrections Section page
Jail address1077 Civic Center Boulevard, Yuba City, CA 95993
Staffing as publishedOver 75 full and part-time employees
Jail Division CommanderCaptain Matt Maples
Rated capacity396 beds

Source: Sutter County Sheriff's Office — Corrections Section · checked 2026-08-23

Transparency rating

5/10Partial

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✗Beds and daily population — not published
✓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 Sutter 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 built1977 (original construction)
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
BedsNo total published; the Corrections Section page describes a 148-bed minimum facility, a 62-bed felony dorm and a 52-bed maximum security single-cell unit as additions to the original design

Since then

Major kitchen renovation (year not stated)
148-bed minimum facility (year not stated)
62-bed felony dorm addition (year not stated)
52-bed maximum security single-cell unit completed 1999

The Sheriff

Sheriff Brandon Barnes

Title as publishedSheriff-Coroner — letterhead reads 'BRANDON BARNES SHERIFF-CORONER'
Also serves asCounty Coroner
Office address1077 Civic Center Boulevard, Yuba City, CA 95993

Still needed

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

Source: Sutter County Sheriff's Office — PC 10008 in-custody death report letterhead · checked 2026-08-23

The Judges

Small court — the published judicial officers page lists all six elected judges and one commissioner, so all are recorded. The court states judges are elected to six-year terms in nonpartisan elections. Judge Ashby (Presiding) and Judges Green, Hinely and Javellana are assigned to criminal calendars; Commissioner Singh hears IV-D child support cases only.

Superior Court of California, County of Sutter — Presiding Judge

David I. Ashby

Superior Court of California, County of Sutter — Judges

Susan E. Green
John K. Hinely
Jesse I. Santana
Fritzgerald A. Javellana
Tahmina Morrow

Superior Court of California, County of Sutter — Commissioner

Navneet Singh

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

www.suttersheriff.gov and www.sutter.gov refuse direct requests from this network (HTTP 403 / Access Denied); every page cited here was read through a rendering proxy that returns the live page content.
Capacity is marked no: the county publishes bed counts for individual additions but no total rated capacity and no daily population figure.
Bail: the Incarcerated Person Release Procedures page carries a 'Posting Bail' section — bail may be posted at the Jail Lobby control room in U.S. currency, cashier's check or money order made out to 'Sutter County Consolidated Courts', no personal checks, or through a bail bond agency.
Fees: the Commissary page directs purchasers to Access Securepak and the FAQ says account deposits are unlimited, but no phone, video visit or commissary price list is published on the county's site.
PREA, inspections and contracts: the Sheriff's published site map (131 pages) contains no PREA page, no inspection report page, and no contract or per-diem page.
Five-member Board of Supervisors, elected by district.

What California law requires

Sutter County posts a death-in-custody page.

Posts 7 of 7

The page is here. A standing page titled 'PC 10008 Information Release' under the Corrections Section states the office 'is required to post specific information within 10 days whenever a subject dies in our custody' and links two PDFs, ICD June 15 2024 and ICD October 28 2024. Each PDF reproduces the statute and answers all seven items individually — for example the October 28, 2024 entry gives Sutter County Sheriff's Office / Sutter County / Sutter County Jail, Max #3 / White, male, 44 years old / October 28, 2024 / arrested October 2, 2024, awaiting trial / manner and means '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

4 people have died in the Sutter County jail since 2019.

1 by suicide

1 illness or medical

4 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them4 of 4

Most recent death on the state's record2024-10-28

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 Sutter 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 Sutter 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