St. Tammany Parish Criminal Portal Steps
For online records, the St. Tammany Parish Clerk sends both civil and criminal users to re:SearchLA. Expect to register or sign in. The portal offers Cases, Filings, and Hearings modes. With a criminal docket in mind, open Cases and search by record number or party name. Filter to the Criminal division where that option exists. Check the returned description, parties, judicial officer, and location before you open Case Details.
Case Details may show a summary, filings or documents, and hearings, depending on the account. That online docket is a good locator. It is not the clerk-certified record. An image or a full minute entry may still take a department request.
The Clerk’s Criminal Department page sets out the department’s services and how to reach them.
That routing is the point. The right department holds the court minutes and the copy-request process, not a broad web search, so a St. Tammany Parish criminal docket question usually ends at the Criminal Department.
How to Search Criminal Dockets
Begin with the paper in hand. The citation, notice, or filing names the court. A 22nd JDC matter sits with the St. Tammany Parish Clerk’s Criminal Department, while City Court of East St. Tammany and the mayor’s courts keep their own dockets. Grab the record number if the paper shows one. Without it, search the defendant name and test the division before trusting any match.
- Open the clerk-linked re:SearchLA record service and sign in or register if prompted.
- Choose Cases, then use the record number or the person’s name and select Criminal where that division filter appears.
- Check the case description, parties, division, and location before opening the matching public case details.
- Read the filings, court minutes, hearing entries, and later events in date order rather than treating one setting as the final result.
- For a missing document, official minute extract, or certified copy, contact the Criminal Department instead of assuming the portal has the whole file.
Need a hearing date instead of a file lookup? Match the case details against the 22nd JDC calendar, then confirm the setting with the minute clerk or division handling the matter. When the case type is unclear, a contextual St. Tammany Parish case search helps narrow it down.
St. Tammany Parish Criminal Name Searches
Name syntax follows the older Smart Search instructions, still the local standard. Enter Last Name, First Name, Middle Name, Suffix. Use a wildcard when spelling is shaky. The pattern Smi*, J* needs at least three last-name characters plus one first-name character. Record Number is the case number field. Party, Case, Judgment, and Warrant serve as advanced filters.
Birth dates stay limited to the Criminal Court Division in the official materials. Sensitive details are withheld. A missing birth date or a redaction never means the case does not exist. There is no universal St. Tammany Parish criminal case-number format published anywhere accessible. Use the exact record number printed on the court paper rather than guessing a format.
What a Criminal Docket Shows
A public criminal docket result can list a lot. The case number, type, and division come first. Participants, attorneys, judicial officers, filings, hearings, and a summary can all appear where the case details allow. Charge descriptions and statutory classifications show up too. Read every event with its date and the entries that follow. One short status label is not the whole story of a St. Tammany Parish case.
| Record Number | The clerk’s identifier for the case. Use the exact number from a citation, notice, or other court paper. |
|---|---|
| Charge block | May show the public charge description, statutory citation or classification, court division, and the State and defendant roles. |
| Minutes and filings | Chronological clerk-entered events that can record actions in court and documents added to the file. |
| Hearing setting | A date, type, time, or hearing detail when available. Confirm the latest individual setting with the court division. |
| Disposition | An outcome such as conviction, dismissal, nolle prosequi, deferred result, sentencing event, or appeal entry, read with the surrounding record. |
St. Tammany Parish Criminal Minutes and Files
A docket result is not automatically the same thing as minutes, a document image, or a certified copy. The Criminal Department researches public criminal court minutes directly. A minute entry records what happened in court. A filed document is the paper or electronic filing behind an event. A certified copy is the clerk’s certified reproduction of the original.
The gap matters most after a plea. It also matters after sentencing or an appeal entry. The index tells you where to look. The official text comes from the office that holds the particular minute or document. Current copy and certification prices follow the department’s current fee sheet, not older form prices.
Stages on a Criminal Docket
A St. Tammany Parish criminal case opens in different ways: complaint, arrest or charging instrument, bill of information, or indictment. At arraignment or initial appearance, the docket may note a plea, counsel, release conditions, and the next setting. From there, entries can cover motions, status settings, a plea, trial, verdict or negotiated result, sentencing, probation, bond forfeiture or capias, and post-judgment activity.
Docket flow: Filing › Arraignment › Pretrial › Plea or Trial › Disposition › Sentencing
Read resets and continuances in order. A later order can move a setting without erasing the earlier entry on the docket. Appeals from a 22nd JDC judgment may later show a reference to the Louisiana Court of Appeal, First Circuit.
St. Tammany Parish Criminal Docket Routing
St. Tammany Parish splits criminal records between two offices. The 22nd JDC Criminal Department keeps parish felony and misdemeanor records, along with juvenile, non-support, adult and juvenile traffic, criminal defendant-history, and appeal records. But it does not hold every criminal-looking record in the parish. City Court of East St. Tammany is separate. It handles its own traffic, DWI, adult criminal, juvenile criminal, CINC/FINS, and warrant matters for Wards 8 and 9. Check the court named on the paperwork first.
| Matter | Custodian to contact | Routing point |
|---|---|---|
| 22nd JDC felony or misdemeanor | St. Tammany Parish Clerk Criminal Department | Parish district-court docket and court-minute records. |
| East-parish city-court criminal or traffic matter | City Court of East St. Tammany | Its own docket, not the parish felony docket. |
| Covington or Mandeville ordinance or traffic case | The relevant Mayor’s Court | City matter, not a 22nd JDC felony docket. |
| Limited ward matter | The relevant Justice of the Peace office | Local records and committing-magistrate functions do not replace a 22nd JDC record. |
Which Court Holds Criminal Dockets
Start with the right court. The Twenty-Second Judicial District Court is the general trial court for St. Tammany Parish felony matters. Parish criminal records sit with the Clerk’s Criminal Department. The Justice Center is at 701 N. Columbia Street in Covington. Call Criminal customer service at (985) 809-8732. The misdemeanor minute-clerk line is (985) 809-8781. The Slidell Annex helps with civil and criminal matters. Its customer-service and filing services range from limited to fully functional.
Do not send a City Court case to the parish felony desk just because the person or the event happened in St. Tammany Parish. City Court of East St. Tammany, at 501 Bouscaren Street in Slidell, is a separate custodian of its own criminal docket. Covington and Mandeville Mayor’s Courts handle city ordinance and traffic violations. The court printed on the notice is your best routing guide.
St. Tammany Parish Criminal No-Match Results
A no-match result is not proof that no St. Tammany Parish criminal record exists. Retry the exact record number. Try the documented wildcard name form. Confirm the Criminal division is the one selected. The Clerk’s current notice says sealed cases and documents are not available for online viewing in re:SearchLA. A sealed-case search can return “no match for search.” Treat a dead end as a routing clue, not a final answer.
When the portal is incomplete: Contact the Criminal Department with the record number, party name, document type, and date if known. For a current hearing, also compare the court notice with the docket and confirm with the minute clerk or division. A hidden online result may reflect sealing, expungement, another court’s custody, or a record that has not been made available online.
Public Access and Sealed Criminal Dockets
Louisiana public-record and court-record rules support inspection and copying of non-exempt records. They do not, however, put every criminal record online for the public. Some records stay confidential. Juvenile, sealed, and expunged records can be withheld. So can protected personal, medical, social, school, or victim material. Expungement removes a record from ordinary public access without destroying it. The Clerk cannot give legal advice or prepare an expungement filing.
Key Louisiana rules:
La. R.S. 44:31 recognizes an adult’s right to inspect, copy, or reproduce public records unless a law creates an exemption.
La. C.C.P. art. 251 makes the clerk the legal custodian of court records and provides for examination, copying, and certified copies subject to law.
Children’s Code art. 412 makes juvenile records and reports confidential except for authorized disclosures and limited statutory exceptions.
St. Tammany Parish Criminal Copy Paths
Criminal records from 1977 forward start with the official criminal copy-request form. You can ask for the entire record or one docket or document type. It wants the docket number and defendant name. Date of birth, document type, copy quantity, and certifications are also required. Fax the request to (985) 809-8779. Or mail it to P.O. Box 1090, Attn. Criminal Customer Service, Covington, LA 70434. Pickup or mail return are both allowed.
Records before 1977 belong to Archives at (985) 809-8746. So do not count on the current online index to supply the file. The form still bears a prior clerk’s name. Confirm its current use and the total cost with the department. For certified copies and current pricing, the current Criminal Department fee sheet controls. A formal 22nd JDC public-records request goes through the court’s public-records request channel. It lists Court Administrator Amber Mitchell, Room 3210, 701 N. Columbia Street, (985) 809-5300, fax (985) 809-5390, and amitchell@stpgov.org.
St. Tammany Parish Criminal Drug Court Dockets
The 22nd JDC runs an Adult Drug Court and a co-occurring behavioral-health track. Drug Court is a post-adjudication program with monitoring and treatment requirements. Successful completion may support an eligible expungement. It does not make the underlying criminal case disappear from the court’s lawful record process.
The program is a specialized layer inside a criminal matter. It is not a separate substitute for the court docket. A public searcher should still follow the case’s division, minutes, and later disposition entries. Confirm program eligibility, attendance requirements, and any question about relief with the court. The clerk does not give legal advice.
St. Tammany Parish Criminal Appeal Entries
An appeal entry after a 22nd JDC criminal judgment signals possible review beyond the parish trial docket. Review may move to the Louisiana Court of Appeal, First Circuit. The original criminal docket still matters. It supplies the trial-level minutes, filings, judgment, and chronology. An appellate case carries its own record and case number. So confirm which court holds the item you need. Do not assume the local docket contains every appellate filing.