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

The Detention Center

Calhoun County Adult Detention Center

Operated byCalhoun County Sheriff's Office
County publishes a jail nameYes - listed as 'Adult Detention Center' on the Law Enforcement page and as 'Calhoun County Adult Detention Center' on the county's own inmate list
Jail address302 W. Live Oak, Port Lavaca, TX 77979
Jail phone361-553-4475
Current Inmate Listhttp://172.108.215.87/dcn/ - linked from the county's Adult Detention page
Beds and population, 2026-0869 people held in 144 rated beds

Source: Calhoun County - Adult Detention · checked 2026-08-22

Transparency rating

3/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✓Who is in custody
✗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 Calhoun 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
Beds144 rated capacity (TCJS Inmate Population Report, 1 Aug 2026; 69 in custody, including 4 contract inmates from other Texas counties)

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Bobbie Vickery

TitleCalhoun County Sheriff
Office211 S. Ann Street, Port Lavaca, TX 77979
Phone361-553-4646
Fee scheduleCCSO Fee Schedule posted at https://www.calhouncotx.org/CCSO%20Fees.pdf

Still needed

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

Source: Calhoun County - Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-22

The Judges

Calhoun County's own site does not name the district judges. Its Courts page links only to the District Clerk and District Attorney. Calhoun shares the 24th, 135th and 267th District Courts with DeWitt, Goliad, Jackson, Refugio and Victoria Counties. Five JP precincts, an unusually high number for a county this size.

County Judge

Vern Lyssy

County Court at Law No. 1

James R. Beeler

District Courts (24th, 135th and 267th Judicial Districts)

Not found

Justices of the Peace

Hope Kurtz (Pct. 1)
Thomas Dio (Pct. 2)
Tanya Dimak (Pct. 3)
Wesley J. Hunt (Pct. 4)
Nancy J. Pomykal (Pct. 5)

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 →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

The county's inmate list is served from a bare IP address (http://172.108.215.87/dcn/) rather than a calhouncotx.org URL, but it is the link the county itself publishes and the page is titled 'Calhoun County Adult Detention Center'.
Calhoun has a large Financial Transparency section (final budgets, proposed budgets, check registers, payroll, auditor reports) and advertises a state Platinum transparency award, but nothing breaks out the jail.
The Sheriff's Office fee schedule covers civil process fees, not inmate phone, video or commissary rates.
The county's minutes link is a 'Past Agendas' archive; approved minutes are not posted separately.
Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides.
County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats

The record

No death in the Calhoun County jail appears on the state's record since 2016.

0 by suicide

0 illness or medical

0 deaths in all, 2016 onward

People held, 2026-0869 in 144 beds

Share not convicted of the charge holding them66.7%

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 Calhoun 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