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

The Detention Center

Liberty County Jail

Operated byLiberty County Sheriff's Office — the Sheriff's Office states it assumed operational management on October 1, 2020
County publishes a jail nameYes — 'Liberty County Jail' on both the county Sheriff page and the Sheriff's Office jail page
Jail address2400 Beaumont Avenue, Liberty, Texas 77575
Published size"285 bed adult (male & female) jail facility"
Jail administratorHeather Urias Guerrero, 936-336-9395 ext. 2824
Inmate searchPortal linked from the jail page (Tyler Technologies)
Rated capacity281 beds (TCJS inmate population report, 1 Aug 2026)
Population on 1 Aug 2026162 (57.7% of capacity), per TCJS
Beds and population, 2026-08162 people held in 281 rated beds

Source: Liberty County Sheriff's Office — Jail · 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 Liberty 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
Beds285 as published by the Sheriff's Office; 281 rated capacity per TCJS, 1 Aug 2026

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Robert "Bobby" Rader

Office address5345 North Main, Liberty, Texas 77575
Phone(936) 336-4500
Substation304 Campbell Street, Cleveland, Texas 77327, (281) 593-8440
Departmental sitelibertytxsheriff.com, linked from the county page

Still needed

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

Source: Liberty County, Texas — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22

The Judges

Six justice of the peace precincts — the largest bench in this group. The 253rd District Court is shared with Chambers County.

County Judge

Jay H. Knight

County Court at Law

Thomas Chambers

County Court at Law No. 2

Wesley N. Hinch

District Court (75th Judicial District)

Michelle Merendino

District Court (253rd Judicial District)

Chap B. Cain, III

Justices of the Peace

Stephen Hebert (Precinct 1)
Jimmy L. Belt (Precinct 2)
Cody Parrish (Precinct 3)
Larry Wilburn (Precinct 4)
Wade Brown (Precinct 5)
Ralph Fuller (Precinct 6)

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

Capacity is marked no because the Sheriff's Office publishes a bed count but not the daily population; the daily count comes only from the state.
The Sheriff's Office statement that it "assumed operational management" of the jail on October 1, 2020 implies an earlier operator, but the county publishes nothing about who that was or on what terms.
The full Sheriff's Office navigation was reviewed: there is no PREA page, no inspection result, no in-custody death report and no fee schedule.
Adopted and proposed budgets are published for FYE 2019 through FYE 2027; agendas run September 2021 through August 2026 (agendas only, no minutes).
TCJS publishes only agency-wide reports online; a county-specific inspection report must be requested under the Public Information Act.
Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Bruce Karbowski, Precinct 2 Greg Arthur, Precinct 3 David S. Whitmire, Precinct 4 Gerald Kolarik. Court meets the 2nd and 4th Tuesday.
County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats

The record

6 people have died in the Liberty County jail since 2019.

3 by suicide

2 illness or medical

6 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them4 of 6

Deaths within the first week of arriving3

Most recent death on the state's record2023-06-03

People held, 2026-08162 in 281 beds

Share not convicted of the charge holding them75.3%

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 Liberty 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