Johnson County, Wyoming — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Johnson County Detention Center

Operated byJohnson County Sheriff's Office
PhonesJail 307-684-5584; booking 307-425-6032.
Where the name appearsThe county's detention page calls it only “Detention Center”; the full name appears on its PREA page.
Accountability recordsThe county publishes PREA audit reports for 2022–2023 through 2024–2025.

Source: Johnson County PREA page · checked August 21, 2026

Transparency rating

5/10Partial

✓The jail is named
✗Who is in custody — not published
✓Beds and daily population
✓What it costs taxpayers
✗Deaths in custody — not published
✓PREA audits
✗Independent inspection — not published
✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
✓How to post bond
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Johnson County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked August 21, 2026. 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 built2011 — the Justice Center, law enforcement and detention
Original costAbout $9 million for the Justice Center, per the architect's project page; the connected Judicial Center that followed in 2012 was a further $8.9 million
Paid for byNot found
Beds56, with an average daily population of 29 in the year before the 2026 PREA audit

The Sheriff

Sheriff Rod Odenbach

Office639 Fort Street, Buffalo, WY 82834.
Command staffUndersheriff Pat Monroe; Captains Leigh Braley and Wes Killian.

Still needed

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

Source: Johnson County Sheriff, johnsoncowy.gov · checked August 21, 2026

The Judges

Wyoming splits the bench. Circuit Court handles initial appearances — the first place bond is set. District Court takes felonies after bindover.

Circuit Court, 4th Judicial District

Hon. Sheryl Smith Bunting — appointed January 2024; term expires January 2027
Magistrate Jeremy Kisling — appointed January 2025; term expires January 2027

620 West Fetterman Street, Suite 108, Buffalo, WY 82834

District Court, 4th Judicial District

Hon. Benjamin Kirven — appointed July 2022; term expires January 2031

620 West Fetterman Street, Suite 208, Buffalo, WY 82834

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 August 21, 2026

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

A magistrate sits alongside the circuit judge here. In Wyoming, magistrates commonly handle initial appearances and can set bond.
The justice center is governed by a joint powers board shared with the City of Buffalo, though the sheriff's office runs the detention center.
The bed count is published only inside a 122-page PREA audit. No narrative page states it.
PREA disclosure is the deepest in Wyoming: policy, annual reports for three years, and two full certified audits.
Detention staff will confirm by phone whether someone is in custody and state their bond — offered explicitly in place of a public roster.
Agendas and minutes are not hosted on the county site — the meeting page links out to public Google Drive folders, one per year.

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Johnson 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 sheriff is on your ballot

In Wyoming the county clerk runs the election in Johnson County and prints the ballot the sheriff’s name is on. Links from the Wyoming Secretary of State and vote.gov.

Names verified August 21, 2026 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered