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

The Detention Center

The county publishes no formal name for this facility.

Operated byNot stated on the county site - Franklin County publishes no jail or detention page
County publishes a jail nameNo - the Sheriff's page gives an address and phone and nothing else
What was triedhttps://www.co.franklin.tx.us/page/franklin.Sheriff ; https://www.co.franklin.tx.us/page/franklin.BailBondInfo ; https://www.co.franklin.tx.us/ (full navigation index) - no jail or detention page exists
Beds and population, 2026-0876 people held in 112 rated beds

Source: Franklin County - Sheriff · 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 Franklin 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 Ricky Jones

TitleFranklin County Sheriff
Office address208 TX Hwy 37, Mt. Vernon, TX 75457
Phone903-537-4539

Still needed

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

Source: Franklin County - Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22

The Judges

Franklin County is served by two district courts (8th and 62nd) and one countywide justice of the peace. No county court at law.

County Judge

Scott Lee

8th District Court

Eddie Northcutt

62nd District Court

Not found - the county's 62nd District Court page publishes a phone and fax number but no judge's name

Justice of the Peace

Robert W. Zinn

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

Franklin County runs a jail (TCJS reported an average daily population in the 39-48 range through 2026) but publishes nothing about it on its own website - no page, no name, no capacity, no roster, no fees.
The county's 'Bail Bond Information' page is licensing paperwork for bondsmen (employee, individual surety, corporate surety and corporate agent applications, surety assignments, and the Bail Bond Board's local rules). It is not guidance for a member of the public on posting bond, so bond_info is marked no. Page: https://www.co.franklin.tx.us/page/franklin.BailBondInfo
The FY2026 budget PDF is a scan with no extractable text; no jail or sheriff line item could be read. The budget is published.
Commissioners court minutes with exhibits are published through an external records portal linked from the commissioners page: https://franklintx.countygovernmentrecords.com/FranklinTXRecorder/web/
Audit rules applied uniformly across this group: capacity=yes only if a bed count is published on a county site; fees=yes only if an actual dollar rate for phone, video visit or commissary is published; bond_info=yes only if the county publishes practical guidance for posting bond or an official approved bail-bond company list.
TCJS publishes no county-specific inspection page or report on its public website; only statewide reports and a non-compliant-jails list. This county was not on the non-compliant list checked 2026-08-22.
Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Court meets the 2nd and 4th Monday at 9:00 am.
County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats

The record

No death in the Franklin 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, 2026-0876 in 112 beds

Share not convicted of the charge holding them77.6%

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 Franklin 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