Gray 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. Gray County reports a county jail to TCJS but publishes no jail page and names no operator.
County publishes a jail nameNo — the Sheriff page is four lines of contact detail and two outside links
Jail addressNot found on the county site
Jail phoneNot found on the county site
What was triedhttps://www.co.gray.tx.us/page/gray.Sheriff and the full site navigation — there is no jail, inmate, roster, bond, visitation or commissary page
Beds and population, 2026-0854 people held in 78 rated beds

Source: Gray 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 Gray 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
Beds78 rated capacity (TCJS Inmate Population Report, 1 August 2026; 54 held, 69% of capacity)

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff JC Skinner

OfficeGray County Sheriff
Address218 N. Russell, Pampa, TX 79065
Phone806-669-8022
Custody lookupPage links only to VINELink, a third-party service

Still needed

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

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

The Judges

Gray County runs two combined JP courts, Precincts 1 & 3 and Precincts 2 & 4. The Precinct 2 & 4 page names only the court coordinator and criminal clerk, not the judge.

County Judge

Chris Porter

District Court (31st)

Steven R. Emmert

District Court (223rd)

Phil Vanderpool

Justices of the Peace

Julie Sims (Pct. 1 & 3)
Not found (Pct. 2 & 4)

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

Gray County publishes adopted and proposed budgets FY2018 through FY2027, but nothing at all about the jail it runs.
The Commissioners' Court page publishes rules of procedure and an agenda page.
Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. The county page names Logan Hudson, Lake Arrington, John Mark Baggerman (Pct. 3) and Jeff Haley (Pct. 4), but labels both Hudson and Arrington 'Precinct 1 Commissioner' — the precinct for one of them is not reliably published.
County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats

The record

2 people have died in the Gray County jail since 2021.

1 by suicide

0 illness or medical

2 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them1 of 2

Deaths within the first week of arriving2

Most recent death on the state's record2025-05-12

People held, 2026-0854 in 78 beds

Share not convicted of the charge holding them77.8%

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 Gray 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