The Detention Center
None — Mora County operates no jail
- Operated byNot applicable
- FindingMora County's own staff directory lists thirteen departments and none is a detention center, jail or corrections department
- Where prisoners goNot found. The county publishes nothing about where people arrested in Mora County are held, and no acceptable source was located
- What was triedhttps://www.countyofmora.com/ ; https://www.countyofmora.com/directory ; https://www.countyofmora.com/county-sheriff ; https://www.countyofmora.com/County-Commission ; https://www.countyofmora.com/board-county-commission ; https://www.countyofmora.com/meetings ; https://www.nmcounties.org/counties/mora-county/ . A web search returned only commercial inmate-search sites, which this project does not treat as sources
Source: Mora County staff directory · checked 2026-08-24
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot applicable — no county jail found
- Original costNot applicable
- Paid for byNot applicable
- BedsNot applicable
Since then
- Not applicable
The Sheriff
Sheriff Americk Padilla
- OfficeMora County Sheriff; Eric Padilla is Undersheriff
- How the office is filledElected countywide
- Sheriff's Office sizeCounty directory lists five sheriff's office personnel: sheriff, undersheriff, a sergeant, a dispatcher/admin and an IT technician
- Runs the jailNo jail to run. Mora County lists no detention, jail or corrections department
- Phone575-387-2222
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Mora County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-24
The Judges
New Mexico district and magistrate judges are initially appointed by the Governor to fill a vacancy, then stand in a partisan election at the next general election, and thereafter face non-partisan retention elections. They are state judicial officers, not county officials. The Fourth Judicial District serves Mora, San Miguel and Guadalupe counties and sits at 496 W. National Ave., Las Vegas, New Mexico. Magistrate judges usually set conditions of release at first appearance.
Fourth Judicial District Court — Chief Judge
- Flora Gallegos (Division III)
Fourth Judicial District Court — Judges
- Michael A. Aragon (Division I)
- Abigail P. Aragon (Division II)
- 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
- The finding for Mora County is that it operates no jail. Its published department list and staff directory contain no detention, jail or corrections function, and the sheriff's office is listed with five personnel.
- Where Mora County's prisoners are held is not published by the county and could not be confirmed from any acceptable source, so it is recorded as Not found rather than guessed. All ten transparency checks are 'no' because there is no county jail to publish about.
- No county budget document was found on the county's own site; the commission page refers requesters to the County Clerk's Office.
- New Mexico has no mandatory statewide jail inspection body. The NM Association of Counties runs a voluntary accreditation program; nothing is published for Mora County.
- NMSA 1978 Section 33-15-3, the death-in-custody reporting statute, applies to private correctional facilities only. County jails in New Mexico have no state death-reporting requirement.
- Three-member Board of County Commissioners: Veronica M. Serna (District 1), George A. Trujillo (District 2, Chair), Johnny H. Trujillo (District 3, Vice-Chair). Meets the third Friday of the month at 9:00 a.m. in the Mora Independent School District board room. The commission page directs the public to the County Clerk's Office for archived minutes, resolutions and ordinances. No dedicated detention tax was found published.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Mora 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