The Detention Center
Dan Saunders Law Enforcement Center
- Operated byMartin County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail namePartly — the county publishes the building as the "Dan Saunders Law Enforcement Center" and gives it as the Sheriff's physical address. It never writes "Martin County Jail" or says the jail is inside
- Address3522 Interstate 20, Stanton, TX 79782
- Rosterhttps://jailroster.kologik.com/?_TX1590000 — linked from the Sheriff page as "Current Inmate Roster"
- Fees publishedOnly Sheriff's Office civil process fees (http://co.martin.tx.us/DocumentCenter/View/163) — nothing on phone, video visit or commissary
- What was triedhttp://co.martin.tx.us/164/Sheriff ; http://co.martin.tx.us/31/Departments ; http://co.martin.tx.us/Archive.aspx ; http://co.martin.tx.us/AgendaCenter
- Beds and population, 2026-0817 people held in 54 rated beds
Source: Martin County — Sheriff · 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
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds54 rated capacity (TCJS Inmate Population Report, 1 Aug 2026); 17 held, 31.5% of capacity — the emptiest jail of any size in this group, and not published by the county itself
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Randy Cozart
- Published as"Randy Cozart, Sheriff"
- FacilityDan Saunders Law Enforcement Center, 3522 Interstate 20, Stanton, TX 79782
- MailingP.O. Box 1127, Stanton, TX 79782
- Phone432-756-3336; fax 432-607-2992
- Emailrcozart@co.martin.tx.us
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Martin County — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
No County Court at Law; the County Judge presides over Civil, Probate, Juvenile and County Criminal Courts. The county's JP page states outright that the JP is a magistrate under Art. 2.09 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Two JPs cover four precincts. The district judge's office is administered out of Howard County.
County Judge
- Bryan Cox
District Court (118th Judicial District)
- R. Shane Seaton
Justices of the Peace
- Jarrell Hedrick (Precincts 1 & 3)
- Nancy Bradshaw (Precincts 2 & 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
- The "named" check is marked yes on a narrow reading: the county names the building (Dan Saunders Law Enforcement Center) but never identifies it in words as the county jail.
- Martin County held no contract or federal inmates and had none housed elsewhere on 1 Aug 2026 — a 54-bed jail running at under a third full.
- Budgets 2017-2026 and county audits 2015-2025 are published through the CivicPlus Archive Center; agendas and minutes are current (agenda for 25 Aug 2026 posted 20 Aug 2026).
- The Archive Center is rendered client-side, so only the section landing page URL can be cited, not per-year document URLs.
- TCJS does not publish a per-county inspection page or routine inspection report online; the only county-level TCJS documents found are the statewide Inmate Population Report (https://www.tcjs.state.tx.us/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/PopReportCurrent.xlsx) and the Non-Compliant Jails list (https://www.tcjs.state.tx.us/non-compliant-jails/), which did not list this county as of 22 Aug 2026.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Kenny Stewart, Precinct 2 Auggie Ramos, Precinct 3 Brian Snellgrove, Precinct 4 Koy Blocker; County Judge Bryan Cox. Court meets the second and fourth Tuesday at 9 a.m.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
No death in the Martin County jail appears on the state's record since 2016.
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 Martin 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