Gunnison County, Colorado — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Gunnison County Detention Center

Operated byGunnison County Sheriff's Office
Jail addressGunnison County Public Safety Center, 510 W. Bidwell, Gunnison, CO 81230
Detention CaptainMidge Barton
Statutory basis publishedCounty page cites CRS 17-26-101 through 17-26-120 as the standard the facility must meet or exceed
Booking fee$30 booking fee on every booking
BailMoney/commissary and bail deposits handled through inmatecanteen.com; county posts the HB21-1260 bond-rights notice
Holds for other countiesHinsdale County's Board of County Commissioners considered an intergovernmental agreement with Gunnison County and the Gunnison County Sheriff for inmate housing services (Hinsdale BOCC agenda, 11/19/2025)
What was triedhttps://www.gunnisoncounty.org/453/Transparency and https://www.gunnisoncounty.org/165/Detention-Services were checked for PREA, inspection and death-in-custody material; none found

Source: Gunnison County Sheriff's Office — Detention Services · checked 2026-08-24

Transparency rating

4/10Partial

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✗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
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Gunnison County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-08-24. 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

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Adam Murdie

Runs the jailYes — the Gunnison County Sheriff's Office operates the Gunnison County Detention Center
How the office is filledElected county sheriff
UndersheriffJosh Ashe
Office address510 W. Bidwell, Gunnison, CO 81230

Still needed

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

Source: Gunnison County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-24

The Judges

Colorado judges are appointed by the Governor from a list submitted by a judicial nominating commission and then face retention elections. District and county court judges are state judicial officers, not county officials. The county court judge normally sets bond at first appearance.

7th Judicial District — District Court Chief Judge

D. Cory Jackson

7th Judicial District — District Court Judges

Steven L. Schultz
Kellie Starritt
Keri A. Yoder
Laura E. H. Harvell
Matthew G. Margeson

Gunnison County Court Judge

Ashley M. Burgemeister

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 2026-08-24

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

roster: the county publishes an Inmate Daily Roster as a PDF from its own Archive Center; the link was opened and returned a PDF.
budget: the 2026 Gunnison County Annual Budget was downloaded from the county's own budget archive and contains a SHERIFF section. A separate detention appropriation was not visible in the text that could be extracted.
contracts: Hinsdale County's own agenda shows an inmate-housing IGA with Gunnison County was considered, but Gunnison County does not publish that contract or its rates on its own site, so the check is recorded as no.
bond_info: the Detention Services page explains bail deposits and links the county's HB21-1260 legal-rights notice (https://www.gunnisoncounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/12330), which states that bond and booking fees never need to be paid to secure release.
fees: a $30 booking fee is published, but commissary, phone and video-visit rates are handled by a third-party vendor and no rate schedule appears on the county site.
Board of County Commissioners — three members: Laura Puckett Daniels (District 3, Chairperson), Elizabeth 'Liz' Smith (District 1, Vice-Chair), Jonathan Houck (District 2). Offices at 200 E. Virginia Avenue, Gunnison. The Board also sits as the County Board of Equalization and, jointly with Hinsdale County, on the Gunnison-Hinsdale Board of Human Services. No dedicated jail or detention sales-tax levy was found.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Gunnison 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.

Names verified 2026-08-24 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered