Murray County, Georgia — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

M.C. Jail (Murray County Jail)

Operated byMurray County Sheriff's Office
Published mentionCounty agenda archive lists a March 6, 2024 bid opening for 'Video Surveillance/Alarms/Access Control System for M.C. Jail'
Jail addressNot found on county pages
Rated capacityNot found

Source: Murray County — Commissioner agenda archive · checked 2026-09-29

Transparency rating

1/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✗Who is in custody — not published
✗Beds and daily population — not published
✗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

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Murray County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-29. 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 Jimmy Davenport

Runs the jailYes — Georgia law makes the sheriff the county's jailer (O.C.G.A. 42-4-1); the county's Sheriff's Office page does not describe jail operations
How the office is filledElected, four-year term
Office address810 1/2 G.I. Maddox Parkway, Chatsworth, GA 30705

Still needed

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

Source: Murray County — Sheriff's Office page · checked 2026-09-29

The Judges

Georgia's superior court judges are elected state judges who hear felony cases. For most charges a county magistrate sets bail soon after arrest; for the most serious felonies only a superior court judge can.

Who sets bail in Murray County

Superior Court: the Conasauga Judicial Circuit, which also serves Whitfield. Superior court judges are elected circuit-wide in nonpartisan elections to four-year terms and hear felony cases; for the most serious felonies only a superior court judge can set bail.
Magistrate Court: the Murray County Magistrate Court. For most charges a magistrate sets bail soon after arrest.

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 2026-09-29

The Board of Commissioners

They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.

What they controlThe county budget that funds the sheriff's office and the jail, and the jail building itself. Some small counties have a sole commissioner; consolidated governments such as Athens-Clarke, Augusta-Richmond, Columbus and Macon-Bibb have a commission instead.
What they don'tDay-to-day operations. By law the sheriff is the jailer of the county and appoints the other jailers, subject to the governing authority's supervision (O.C.G.A. 42-4-1). No state agency inspects the jail.
NoteMurray County is governed by a sole commissioner; the Commissioner's Office page names Noah Bishop.
The boardMurray County Sole Commissioner →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

Directory website murraycountyga.org is the county government site (Chatsworth, GA confirmed).
Sheriff's Office page names Sheriff Jimmy Davenport; no jail, roster, visitation, commissary or PREA pages found on the county site.
The only jail reference found is an agenda-archive entry for an access-control/video system bid for the 'M.C. Jail' (March 2024).
Bond page (murraycountyga.org/442) describes factors in setting bond and that bonds may be posted via a bonding company or cash/property, but gives no posting procedure, location or schedule — scored no.
FY2025/FY2026 budget adoption documents are listed in the agenda archive, but the documents (ADID=783, 784) returned unreadable binary to our reader; budget scored no as the sheriff/jail line could not be confirmed.
What was tried: one search returned only a GDC listing, a Facebook page and aggregators — no sheriff-owned website found.
State inspection/oversight: Georgia law makes the sheriff the county's jailer. The Georgia Sheriffs' Association, an association of the state's sheriffs rather than a state agency, publishes jail standards and a statewide monthly jail report.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Murray 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 is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for the jail, and the judges who set bail.

Names verified 2026-09-29 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered