Vernon County, Missouri — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Vernon County Jail

Operated byVernon County Sheriff's Office
Jail address2040 East Hunter, Nevada, MO 64772
Jail staff contact publishedLt. Sheila Pepin, listed on the sheriff's jail page; Jail Control Center 417-283-4411. This is a sheriff's office jail supervisor, not an appointed administrator, so jail_administrator is left null
VisitationLobby video-kiosk visits Monday to Friday, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., at no charge, 15 minutes each, up to three a week; remote visits through the CTC smartphone app or citytelecoin.com carry fees, but the rates are not published on the page
Commissary depositsLobby kiosk (card or cash), citytelecoin.com, or mailed money order; no commissary prices published
Housing for other agenciesThe page states the jail "provides out of jurisdiction housing for approved facilities"; no agencies or per-diem rates are published
BedsNot found - no bed count published
Former jailThe 1871 Vernon County Jail, Sheriff's House and Office at 229 N. Main St., Nevada, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, ceased use as a jail in 1960 and is now the Bushwhacker Museum (Wikipedia, background only)
What was triedvernoncosheriff.org home and jail pages were opened. No county government website was returned by search; vernoncountymo.org was attempted and refused (PROVENANCE_REQUIRED).

Source: Vernon County Sheriff's Office - Jail · checked 2026-09-18

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 Vernon County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-09-18. 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 Mike Buehler

Runs the jailYes - the sheriff's office states it is responsible for patrol, incident response and criminal investigation throughout the county "along with running the county jail"
How the office is filledElected county sheriff
Statutory basisRSMo 221.020 gives the sheriff of each county the custody, rule, keeping and charge of the jail and of all prisoners in it; RSMo 221.080 puts jail expense on the county commission.
Office address2040 East Hunter, Nevada, MO 64772
Listed contact417-283-4400

Still needed

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

Source: Vernon County Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-09-18

The Judges

Missouri's 1940 Nonpartisan Court Plan covers the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals statewide, but at circuit level it applies in only six jurisdictions - Clay, Greene, Jackson, Platte, St. Louis County and St. Louis City. This county is not one of them, so its circuit and associate circuit judges are elected on a partisan ballot. They are state judicial officers, not county officials. No judge's name or circuit number was confirmed from a page that could be opened.

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 2026-09-18

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

The sheriff's office runs its own domain, vernoncosheriff.org, which counts as first-party. Its jail page names the Vernon County Jail, gives its address, visitation rules and commissary deposit methods, and states that the jail houses prisoners for approved outside facilities.
The contracts check is recorded as no: the jail states it provides out-of-jurisdiction housing, but publishes no contract, partner agency or rate. The fees check is recorded as no: the page says remote video visits carry fees but publishes no rate, and no phone or commissary prices are given.
No inmate roster, bond guidance, bed count, daily population or PREA material was found on the sheriff's site.
No county government website was returned by the one search spent on this county, and the one domain attempted was refused, so budget and commission minutes could not be examined; they are recorded as not found rather than as absent.
Search results were dominated by commercial inmate-lookup sites styled to look official (vernoncountyjailmo.org, vernonjailroster.org, vernoncountyjail.org, missouriprisons.org, missourijailroster.com). They are not county publications and are not cited or counted.
No Missouri state agency inspects county jails. The Department of Corrections operates and inspects state prisons under RSMo chapter 217; that authority does not reach chapter 221 county and city jails. The Missouri Sheriffs' Association publishes non-binding jail guidance and runs jail-administrator training, but it is a private association of sheriffs, not a regulator. The only statutory mechanisms are local and lay: a grand jury visit to the jail under RSMo 221.300, and a county board of visitors under RSMo 221.320-221.350, which RSMo 221.350 requires to report yearly to the county.
Missouri has no death-in-custody reporting law and no public dataset; RSMo 58.451(1)(5) requires only notice to the coroner.
Ordinary Missouri county, expected to be governed by a three-member County Commission, but no Vernon County government website could be opened, so no commissioner's name, board page or minutes page was confirmed and none is recorded here.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Vernon 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 2026-09-18 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered