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

The Detention Center

County Jail

Operated byMedina County Sheriff's Office
County publishes a jail nameOnly as "Jail" / "County Jail" — the Sheriff page heads the address block "Jail" and the phone block "County Jail". No fuller proper name is published.
Jail address2319 8th Street, Hondo, Texas 78861
Jail phone830-741-6058; fax 830-741-7111
HoursDispatch and Jail staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
Inmate mail / messagingNCIC (www.NCIC.com); physical mail must follow the county's posted NCIC Mail Rules PDF
What was triedhttps://www.medinatx.gov/page/Sheriff ; https://www.medinatx.gov/page/Financial.Transparency ; https://www.medinatx.gov/page/Commissioners.Court ; https://www.medinatx.gov/page/Justice
Beds and population, 2026-08125 people held in 193 rated beds

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

Transparency rating

2/10Closed

✓The jail is named
✗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 Medina 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 Randy Brown

Published as"Sheriff — Randy Brown"
Sheriff's Office801 Ave Y, Hondo, Texas 78861; 830-741-6150
Chief Deputy, Administration & JailChris Champion
Jail AdministratorAriel Soliz
Jail LieutenantManuel Salazar
Jail Commissary ClerkSarah Bernal

Still needed

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

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

The Judges

The county's own domain medinacountytexas.org now redirects to medinatx.gov. Note that medinasheriff.org is Medina County, OHIO — a different agency with a different sheriff — and was not used here.

County Judge

Keith Lutz

County Court at Law

Mark Cashion

District Court

Daniel J. Kindred (454th Judicial District)

Justices of the Peace

Phillip Lange (Pct. 1)
William T. Tschirhart, Jr. (Pct. 2)
Glenn E. Klaus (Pct. 3)
Tomas Ramirez III (Pct. 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

The Sheriff page publishes a full staff list including the Jail Administrator, Jail Lieutenant and Jail Commissary Clerk, but no bed count, no daily population and no roster — custody status is pushed out to the state IVSS system (https://ivss-counties.tdcj.texas.gov/), which is the state publishing about the county, not the county publishing.
The Sheriff page's "Sheriff & Constable Fee Schedules" (2018-2026) are civil-process service fees, not jail phone, video-visit or commissary rates, so the fees check is "no".
Financial Transparency carries adopted and proposed budgets and outside audits back to 2012.
Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Jessica Castiglione, Precinct 2 Larry Sittre, Precinct 3 David Lynch, Precinct 4 Danny Lawler; County Judge Keith Lutz. Court meets every other Monday.
County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats

The record

1 people have died in the Medina County jail since 2022.

0 by suicide

0 illness or medical

1 deaths in all, 2016 onward

Deaths where the person had not been convicted of the charge holding them1 of 1

Deaths within the first week of arriving1

Most recent death on the state's record2022-02-13

People held, 2026-08125 in 193 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 Medina 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