Cherokee County, Oklahoma — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Cherokee County Detention Center

Operated byA trust under a County Jail Board - a separate department of Cherokee County government, not the Sheriff's Office
Address213 W. Delaware, Tahlequah, OK 74464
Operator (county's own words)A trust under a County Jail Board
Sheriff's roleSheriff serves on the oversight board but has no day-to-day operational responsibility for the facility
Governing statusOwn department within Cherokee County government
Rated capacityNot found
Jail administratorNot found
State inspectionOklahoma inspects this jail. Read the state report →

Source: Cherokee County — official source · checked August 21, 2026

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 Cherokee County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked August 21, 2026. 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 Jason Chennault

NoteConfirmed by the Oklahoma State Election Board 2024 Roster of State and County Officers, which lists 'Sheriff - Jason Chennault, R, Tahlequah'. The county page states the Sheriff does NOT operate the county jail.

Still needed

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

Source: Cherokee County Sheriff's Office · checked August 21, 2026

The Judges

Oklahoma elects its district judges in nonpartisan elections. District and associate district judges set bond and decide who waits in this jail.

District Court, Judicial District 15

Josh King - Associate District Judge (Cherokee County)
Gary Huggins - Special Judge (Cherokee County)
Jerry Moore - Special Judge (Cherokee County)
District 15 District Judges seated in other counties of the district: Timothy King and Bret Smith (Muskogee County), Douglas Kirkley (Wagoner County), J. Payton (Adair County)

Cherokee County Courthouse, 213 W. Delaware, Rm. 302, Tahlequah, OK 74464

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 August 21, 2026

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

PUBLIC TRUST JAIL: the county states in its own words that the Cherokee County Detention Center is 'a trust authority jail' and 'a trust under a County Jail Board', operating as its own department of county government rather than under the Sheriff.
SHERIFF DOES NOT RUN THE JAIL: the Sheriff sits on the detention center's oversight board but the county expressly disclaims any day-to-day operational role for him - an accountability split worth flagging.
Disclosure is minimal: the county names the facility but publishes no roster, no bed count, no budget, no PREA policy, no death records, no jail contracts and no fee schedule. The county's /fees page is an empty template.
OSDH inspects the jail annually and the reports are public, but the county itself republishes none of them.
County website is a KellPro/OKCounties.org hosted site (cherokee.okcounties.org); it is live and current.
No agendas or minutes are published. The county's Public Meetings page carries only a boilerplate description of the Board's statutory duties; the county site states agendas are posted physically at the courthouse.

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

The sheriff is on your ballot

The county election board runs the polling place in Cherokee County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from the Oklahoma State Election Board and vote.gov.

Names verified August 21, 2026 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered