The Detention Center
San Miguel County Jail
- Operated bySan Miguel County Sheriff's Office
- Beds34
- Who it holdsArrests made by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including Telluride, Norwood, Mountain Village and Colorado State Patrol activity
- ServicesFoodservice and 24-hour medical care; the jail also handles inmate transportation to courts, medical facilities and other detention centers
- Medical"Everyone who is arrested receives a medical assessment during the booking process. Inmates receive a full physical within the first 14 days of custody."
- Mental health"Mental Health staff is available daily to meet the needs of people in custody"; the county partners with the Center for Mental Health
- ClassificationRisk assessments place people into low-to-high risk pods, separating misdemeanour from felony cases
- Accessibility"The jail is compliant with the Americans with Disability Act."
- What was triedhttps://www.sanmiguelcountyco.gov/802/Sheriff has since been opened and names Sheriff Dan Covault, but it carries no jail address, year built or cost; https://sanmiguelcountyco.gov/233/Law-Enforcement still could not be opened, so those building details remain unconfirmed
Source: San Miguel County — County Jail · checked 2026-08-24
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗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 — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds34
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Dan Covault
- Runs the jailYes — the county's own jail page states "The Sheriff is responsible for maintaining the San Miguel County Jail."
- How the office is filledColorado county sheriffs are elected. Covault was appointed to this office by the San Miguel Board of County Commissioners on 1 May 2025, taking the role 3 June 2025, to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of William "Bill" Masters, Colorado's longest-serving sheriff. Whether he has since stood for election was not established.
- How the name was confirmedThe county's own Sheriff page states "Sheriff Dan Covault is committed to providing quality service to the community."
- Sheriff's Office phone970-728-1911, as published on the county's Sheriff page
- Appointment sourcehttps://www.telluridenews.com/news/article_8ee66ee5-4909-48b7-a18c-270717ee37da.html
Still needed
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: San Miguel County — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
Colorado judges are appointed through a judicial nominating commission and then face retention elections. They are state judicial officers, not county officials.
7th Judicial District Court — Chief Judge
- D. Cory Jackson (Division 4)
7th Judicial District Court — District Judges
- Laura E. H. Harvell (Division 5)
- Matthew G. Margeson (Division 6)
- Steven L. Schultz (Division 1, also Water Judge)
- Kellie Starritt (Division 2)
- Keri A. Yoder (Division 3)
San Miguel County Court
- Melanie S. Morgan (Division G)
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 →
Notes on the record
- San Miguel County names its jail plainly on its own site and publishes a 34-bed capacity, which is unusual candour for a county this size. No daily population figure was found.
- Roster is recorded yes: the county's Sheriff's Office Activity Logs page states the office publishes a Public Information Log, an Arrest Summary Report capturing jail booking activity, and a "Current Inmate List" documenting those in custody.
- The county jail holds arrestees for local, state and federal agencies, but no contract or per-diem rate is published, so contracts is recorded no.
- The county publishes a dedicated Inmate Welfare and Safety page covering medical, mental health, classification and ADA compliance, but it names no PREA audit and no death in custody, so both are recorded no.
- Research on this county was badly hampered: sanmiguelcountyco.gov is a CivicPlus site whose robots.txt repeatedly timed out from this environment. Pages that did open were https://sanmiguelcountyco.gov/268/County-Jail, https://www.sanmiguelcountyco.gov/554/Sheriffs-Office-Activity-Logs, https://sanmiguelcountyco.gov/531/Inmate-Welfare-and-Safety and https://sanmiguelcountyco.gov/265/Criminal-Justice-Record-Request. A later pass also opened https://www.sanmiguelcountyco.gov/802/Sheriff, which names Sheriff Dan Covault. Pages that never opened include the Law Enforcement page, the sitemap and the commissioners' documents.
- Take care not to confuse this county with San Miguel County, New Mexico — every page cited here is the Colorado county, seat Telluride, 7th Judicial District.
- The state Jail Data Dashboard at https://ors.colorado.gov/ors-jaildata is a state publication under CRS 17-26-118 and does not count for the deaths or capacity checks.
- Sheriff Dan Covault reached the office by appointment, not election: the Board of County Commissioners appointed him on 1 May 2025 effective 3 June 2025, on the retirement of William "Bill" Masters. Colorado county sheriffs are otherwise elected. Reported by the Telluride Daily Planet / Norwood Post; the county's own Sheriff page names Covault but does not describe how he took office.
- Board of County Commissioners. The board page and agenda/minutes pages on sanmiguelcountyco.gov could not be opened — the host's robots.txt repeatedly timed out — so no commissioner names or board URLs are recorded rather than guessed. No dedicated jail tax was found.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in San Miguel 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