Onondaga County Sheriff Toby Shelley has filed an appeal a month after a judge threw out a lawsuit trying to prevent the closure of the Jamesville Correctional Facility.

The county passed a law in 2023 that would merge the Jamesville site with the justice center in downtown Syracuse.

Shelley filed a lawsuit last June, arguing the county Legislature didn’t have the power to pass a law, 1-2023, that would close the facility. The law says the sheriff manages and operates the jail, while the county can decide what buildings are purchased and used.

The judge's ruling in April said that "the county's discretion over the acquisition and disposition of its buildings or facilities is not an encroachment on the Sheriff's role in the housing and control of incarcerated individuals."

Shelley has said his powers have “definitely” been diminished by the new law. He estimated it costs about $6 million annually to move overflow inmates to other facilities, and noted there aren’t nearby prisons that could handle the roughly 80 inmates Jamesville currently has.