The Detention Center
The county publishes no formal name for this facility.
- Operated byLa Salle County Sheriff's Office (per the Sheriff page's description of duties)
- County publishes a jail nameNo — the Sheriff page refers to "the jail" generically in a boilerplate duties description and gives it no name, address or phone number
- Beds47 TCJS-rated capacity; 39 held on 1 Aug 2026 (TCJS, not the county)
- BailThe county publishes that the Sheriff accepts bail and sets bail bond policy, but no amounts, schedule or procedure
- What was triedhttps://www.co.la-salle.tx.us/index.php/offices/2016-03-01-15-29-59 ; https://www.co.la-salle.tx.us/index.php/offices/justice-courts ; https://www.co.la-salle.tx.us/index.php/commissioners-court/county-judge ; https://www.co.la-salle.tx.us/index.php/commissioners-court/2014-county-budget ; https://www.co.la-salle.tx.us/index.php/commissioners-court/agendas-and-minutes ; https://www.co.la-salle.tx.us/images/pdfs/Budgets/ADOPTED_BUDGET_2026.pdf
- Beds and population, 2026-0839 people held in 47 rated beds
Source: TCJS Inmate Population Report (current) · 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
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds47 (TCJS-rated capacity, Aug 2026) — the county publishes no bed count
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Hector C. Ramirez
- Published as"La Salle County Sheriff's Office / Hector C. Ramirez / Sheriff"
- Address101 Courthouse Square, Cotulla, TX 78014
- Phone(830) 879-3044
- Duties as publishedThe page states the sheriff is responsible for "operation of the jail, including the safekeeping of inmates and operation of the jail commissary" and "accepts bail for prisoners in his custody"
- Bail policyThe page notes that in a county without a Bail Bond Board, the Sheriff sets bail bond policy
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: La Salle County — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
La Salle County publishes no district judge. Its "District Court" menu contains only a District Attorney page and a County/District Clerk page — the county clerk also serves as district clerk because the county's population is under 8,000. A 2026 criminal docket call is posted as a scanned PDF that names no judge. The Pct. 3 JP is listed as Ernesto Ramirez but the page URL still reads "pct-3-justice-of-the-peace-george-trigo".
County Judge
- Leodoro Martinez, III
Justices of the Peace
- Roxanna Rodriguez (Pct. 1)
- Frank Weikel (Pct. 2)
- Ernesto Ramirez (Pct. 3)
- Janie Megliorino (Pct. 4)
- 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
- La Salle County runs a 47-bed TCJS-regulated jail and publishes no page for it. The only reference is a sentence of statewide boilerplate on the Sheriff page describing what sheriffs do in general.
- Budget check counted on the County Budgets page, which posts adopted budgets from 2014 through 2026. The 2026 PDF is a scanned image with no extractable text, so a jail line item could not be verified.
- Commissioners Court agendas are current and well organised, posted month by month through August 2026, but the page publishes agendas rather than approved minutes.
- TCJS publishes no county-specific inspection page or report URL. Its only county-specific PDFs are non-compliance notices, and this county is not on the Non-Compliant Jails list at https://www.tcjs.state.tx.us/non-compliant-jails/ as of 22 Aug 2026.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Pct. 1 Noel Niavez, Pct. 2 Joaquin Alba, Pct. 3 Erasmo Ramirez, Jr., Pct. 4 Raul Ayala; County Judge Leodoro Martinez, III.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
1 people have died in the La Salle County jail since 2017.
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 La Salle 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