The Detention Center
Not found
- Operated byNot established from a source opened this session
- Association pageNo jail information is provided on the Sheriffs' Association profile for Sully County.
- 2020 Census correctional facility fileSully County is not among the 26 counties whose facilities are listed — a floor, not a certainty.
- Where prisoners goNot established from a source opened this session.
- What was triedsullycounty.net (identified as Sully County's own domain via the SD Association of County Officials directory, https://www.sdcounties.org/counties/) was refused by the fetch tool for lack of provenance.
Source: South Dakota Sheriffs' Association — Sully County · checked 2026-08-25
Transparency rating
0/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗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
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 Bill Stahl
- ElectedYes — SDCL 7-7-1.1, four-year term; has served since January 1991 and is "the longest-serving sheriff in Sully County history" per the association profile
- ContactPO Box 189, 700 Ash Avenue, Onida, SD 57564-0189; 605-258-2244; fax 605-258-2382; sd591@venturecomm.net
- Department size3 total staff, 2 deputies (per the association profile)
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: South Dakota Sheriffs' Association — Sully County · checked 2026-08-25
The Judges
South Dakota circuit judges are elected in a nonpolitical election to eight-year terms (SD Constitution Art. V §7; SDCL 16-6-3); a midterm vacancy is filled by the Governor from Judicial Qualifications Commission nominees. Many first appearances go instead to an appointed magistrate judge (SDCL 16-12B-1.2) or a clerk magistrate working off a bond schedule (SDCL 16-12C-10), neither of whom is elected. All are state judicial officers, not county officials.
Sixth Judicial Circuit (Sully County, per SDCL 16-5-1.2)
- Not found — no judge roster was located on a source opened this session
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-25
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
- Sully County's own domain (sullycounty.net) was located via the SD Association of County Officials directory but was not reachable this session; every check above reflects that no page on the county's own site was opened, not that the county affirmatively fails to publish.
- Board of County Commissioners (SDCL ch. 7-8). Sully County's own site (sullycounty.net) could not be fetched this session, so commissioner names, a board page, and a minutes page were not confirmed from a source opened here.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Sully 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 2026-08-25 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered