The Detention Center
Garfield County Jail - closed
- Operated byFormerly the Garfield County Sheriff's Office; no operator today
- StatusClosed in March 2024. WASPC's 2025 statewide jail statistics list the Garfield County Sheriff's Office under Agencies Not Reporting with the explanation "Agency historically closed."
- Where the county's prisoners goWhitman County Jail, with some held at the Walla Walla County Jail (Spokesman-Review, 22 July 2024)
- Why it closedThe county settled a claim over the April 2022 death of Kyle Lara, 36, who died by suicide in the jail; the $2.5 million settlement was approved on 22 July 2024 and the county agreed not to reopen the jail unless it complies with state and federal regulations and staff receive state corrections training
- What was triedThe county website has no jail or corrections page. We checked the Sheriff's Office page and its sub-pages, the Board of County Commissioners page, the Agendas and Minutes page and the county document library
- Beds, year built, cost, fundingNot found - nothing about the former jail building is published on the county site
Source: Spokesman-Review - Garfield County Jail to close after $2.5 million settlement · checked 2026-08-23
Transparency rating
0/10Closed- ✗The jail is named — not published
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✗What it costs taxpayers — not published
- ✗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
- BedsNot found - the closed facility's bed count is not published by the county
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Drew Hyer
- Runs the jailThere is no operating Garfield County jail - the jail closed in March 2024 and the county's prisoners are held in the Whitman County and Walla Walla County jails
- How the office is filledElected countywide; the county says he is the 22nd sheriff of Garfield County, appointed 1 May 2017, elected that November and sworn in as an elected official 1 December 2017
- Office789 Main St, PO Box 338, Pomeroy, WA 99347 - 509-843-3494
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Garfield County - Sheriff's Office · checked 2026-08-23
The Judges
Washington Superior Court judges are elected in nonpartisan countywide races and District Court judges are elected in nonpartisan district races. Both are state judicial officers, not county officials - the county pays part of the cost but does not choose the judge. A judge, not the sheriff and not the jail, sets bail. Court rosters here come from the Administrative Office of the Courts' county directory.
Garfield County Superior Court - 789 Main Street, Pomeroy
- Brooke J. Burns, Judge
- Julie E. Karl, Commissioner
- Robert Richard King, Commissioner
- David R. Risley, Commissioner
Garfield County District Court - 789 W Main St, Pomeroy
- Thomas W. Cox, Judge
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-23
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
- Garfield is Washington's smallest county by population and now one of the counties with no jail. The closure and the death that preceded it are documented in news reporting and in WASPC's 2025 Agencies Not Reporting sheet, not on the county website.
- All ten checks are no. The county's website does not mention the jail at all - not its closure, not where people arrested in Garfield County are now held, not what the county pays Whitman or Walla Walla County to hold them.
- state_inspection: no Washington Department of Health unexpected fatality at jail review naming Garfield County appears in the DOH list; we read all six pages of https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/unexpected-fatality-jail-reviews .
- The county's website sits behind a bot challenge that blocks automated fetching; the pages cited here were read through a rendering fetch.
- Three commissioners: Vonda Mulrony (District 1), Larry Ledgerwood (District 2), Justin Dixon (District 3). The board meets at 789 Main Street, Pomeroy. No jail district and no dedicated jail tax is published by the county.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Garfield 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.
The county auditor runs the election in Garfield County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from USA.gov and vote.gov.
Names verified 2026-08-23 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered