Bailey County, Texas — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

The county publishes no formal name for this facility.

Operated byBailey County Sheriff's Office
County publishes a jail nameNo — the county publishes a Jail Administrator, a jailer job description and "Jail Visiting Hours" but never a facility name. A deputy job posting is titled "LEC Deputy", implying a Law Enforcement Center, but the county never spells that out.
Jail visiting hoursMales Tuesday 7-10pm and Saturday 8-11am; females Wednesday 7-10pm and Saturday 1-4pm
Jail Administrator phone806-272-7619
What was triedhttps://www.co.bailey.tx.us/page/bailey.Sheriff ; https://www.co.bailey.tx.us/page/bailey.VisitingHours ; https://www.co.bailey.tx.us/page/bailey.Commissioners.Court ; https://www.co.bailey.tx.us/page/bailey.Budgets
Beds and population, 2026-0859 people held in 96 rated beds

Source: Bailey County — Visiting Hours · checked 2026-08-22

Transparency rating

1/10Closed

✗The jail is named — not published
✗Who is in custody — not published
✗Beds and daily population — not published
✓What it costs taxpayers
✗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 Bailey County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-08-22. 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 Richard Wills

Title as publishedSheriff
Chief DeputyJeremiah Murillo
Jail AdministratorVanessa Cervantes — 806-272-7619
Phone806-272-4268
Address for complaints against officers405 West 2nd, Muleshoe, TX 79347

Still needed

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

Source: Bailey County — County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22

The Judges

One Justice of the Peace, published as "Justice of the Peace, County Wide". No County Court at Law.

County Judge

Basil Nash

District Court — 287th

Kathryn Gurley

Justice of the Peace

Rodney Baker

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 2026-08-22

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

Bailey County publishes no commissioners court agendas or minutes anywhere on its site; the Commissioners Court page lists only the four commissioners' names and phone numbers. The minutes field is therefore empty.
Adopted budgets are published back to FY2023 along with the order adopting each one, but the FY2026 PDF is a scanned image with no text layer, so jail line items could not be read. Scored yes on the strength of the county publishing its complete adopted budget.
The Sheriff page does publish a formal complaint-against-officer procedure and a public law-enforcement policy notice — unusual for a county this size — but nothing about the jail beyond visiting hours.
Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Pct. 1 Gary Don Gartin, Pct. 2 Mike Slayden, Pct. 3 Carlos Contreras, Pct. 4 Eric Sowder; County Judge Basil Nash.
County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats

The record

1 people have died in the Bailey County jail since 2023.

1 by suicide

0 illness or medical

1 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them1 of 1

Deaths within the first week of arriving1

Most recent death on the state's record2023-11-21

People held, 2026-0859 in 96 beds

Share not convicted of the charge holding them33.9%

Deaths: Texas Justice Initiative, the cleaned copy of the Texas Attorney General’s custodial death reports — the state’s own public index carries no cause of death and has not been refreshed since August 2025. Population: Texas Commission on Jail Standards monthly report. Counted, not estimated.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Bailey 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 2026-08-22 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered