Search Caddo Parish Court Docket

Caddo Parish Court Docket Searches

Most adult court records in Caddo Parish start with the First Judicial District Court. That court handles district civil, domestic, criminal, succession, protective-order, and related matters. The Caddo Parish Clerk of Court is usually the first office to contact. But the parish runs more than one record system. Juvenile records sit with a separate clerk location. Shreveport City Court keeps its own municipal files. A justice-of-the-peace or mayor's court may hold a local matter. Federal cases live in a separate federal docket system entirely.

1. Read the court name, agency, case number, division, and date shown on the citation, notice, or filing.
2. Choose the official record path: Caddo Clerk Connect for district civil or criminal inquiry, a local court portal for city matters, or the appropriate court office.
3. Use the exact docket number when it is available. For a name search, keep spelling variants and the party's role in mind.
4. Separate a calendar result from case history. Review the date, courtroom, judge, section, and event label before treating a setting as current.
5. Request an official or certified copy from the clerk or court that maintains the file when a portal result is not enough.

Know the fallback order before you search. Caddo's official options include the Clerk's Web Inquiry links, Clerk Connect, eClerks LA, the Daily Criminal Docket, and the District Attorney's future-date search. Those do not always answer the question. Then go to the Room 103 public counter. Call the correct minutes or copies telephone line, or send a written request. The courthouse offers public access. Ask the Clerk which access method is currently available. The Clerk does not publish a count of public terminals.

Start With the Case Paper

In Caddo Parish, the paper in hand often picks the court for you. A Shreveport Police citation belongs with Shreveport City Court. State traffic tickets from the Caddo Sheriff and other agencies listed by the District Attorney follow the Caddo traffic process instead. A town ordinance may land in a mayor's court. A juvenile case belongs with the Juvenile Court. A Western District matter is not in the parish Clerk's system at all. Read the court name, the issuing agency, and the docket or citation number before you start searching, because those details keep a case lookup out of the wrong database.

Court Dockets: What They Show

Think of a docket as a procedural index, not the whole file. It can identify a case, show filings and minute entries. It can list a future setting or result where the system exposes those details. The document image itself, the evidence, the transcript, and a certified copy are separate layers of the court record. Read entries with care. A charging instrument is an allegation. A scheduled event is not proof the event occurred or that the case reached a final result.

Caddo Docket Portal Access

Caddo's official Web Inquiry page sends district-court users to separate Records, Civil, Criminal, and Marriage License inquiry channels. Caddo Clerk Connect is the detailed parish civil and criminal route. Its account-enabled fields are dynamic, and access is paid, though the exact post-login filters and export options are not published. eClerks LA and the Louisiana Clerks' Remote Access Authority add statewide layers, useful for whichever record type they actually cover.

The eClerks LA home page lays out the statewide and parish services available through the LCRAA system.

Let the portal category tell you where a record lives. A free statewide index, a paid parish inquiry, a criminal minute-entry layer, and a document image are not interchangeable results. Match the layer to the question.

Caddo Parish Courts and Their Dockets

Caddo Parish has no single universal court index. The court that holds the matter sets the docket. Start with the parish Clerk for First Judicial District Court cases. City, juvenile, justice-of-the-peace, mayor's court, and federal records stay in their own systems. Appeals from the First Judicial District go to the Louisiana Court of Appeal, Second Circuit. That is the intermediate appellate court.

Caddo Docket Terms in Plain English

Minute entry

A court's procedural notation of a hearing, filing, ruling, or other event. It is not always a complete document image.

Civil Suit Daybook

A Clerk Connect filing-intake view for civil activity, not a substitute for the complete case file or future hearing calendar.

Section or division

A Caddo district-court assignment clue. It helps identify the case's local routing but is not a separate statewide court system.

Continuance or reset

A changed setting. The order or minute entry determines whether a date was moved, vacated, or otherwise modified.

Certified copy

A reproduction authenticated by the record custodian. It is different from an online printout, index result, or transcript.

Court Dates and Settings in Caddo Parish

Match the source to the kind of setting you need. The Caddo Clerk Daily Criminal Docket is a public calendar display. Its columns cover defendant, time, date, courtroom, judge, and section. The District Attorney's criminal search takes a last name or docket number. It can show a next court date, time, courtroom number, and judge. But it reports only cases with a future court date. Civil and domestic matters turn to Clerk Connect, the Civil Suit Daybook, and the civil or domestic minutes route rather than the DA's criminal calendar. Shreveport City Court posts criminal and civil calendars separately. Blanchard has a Mayor's Court calendar of its own. Any setting on an online calendar can be continued, vacated, reassigned, or changed in some other way. For a fuller local workflow, see the Court Schedule. Confirm an important date with the clerk or court office before you rely on it.

Next Setting Versus Case History

Three Caddo sources answer three different questions. The Daily Criminal Docket tells you what is listed on that public day view. The DA search tells you whether an adult criminal matter has a future setting. It only covers matters in its own system. Clerk Connect, the Clerk's minutes, and a copy request are the stronger routes for filing history. They also reach the records behind an event. Read negative results carefully. A DA result saying no future court date is not a disposition. A daybook entry is not the full civil file. If results disagree, save the case number and the exact wording. Save the source URL and the date you accessed it too. Then ask the civil or criminal minutes desk to confirm the current setting or a relevant entry. Caddo's budget lists Drug Court and Veterans Court resources. Even so, the parish offers no separate public specialty-court docket portal. A program reference is not proof of enrollment, either. That discipline keeps a calendar tool from being mistaken for proof that a matter was dismissed, tried, or never filed.

Docket Access Under Louisiana Law

Louisiana public access starts with who holds the record and what kind it is. The law generally lets you examine and copy public records. It does not open every filing, field, or document image. Sealing, juvenile confidentiality, expungement, and redaction all stay in force. Other exceptions apply as well. When an item is restricted, ask the custodian which rule governs it. Ask also whether a public or redacted portion exists.

Caddo Docket Results Have Limits

Some Caddo Parish docket results simply will not appear. Juvenile records stay confidential under Children's Code art. 412, and Code of Criminal Procedure art. 973 protects expunged records the same way. Even when a public index lists a case or filing, a sealed document, a protected identifier, a domestic attachment, a grand-jury item, discovery material, or a medical record may be withheld. R.S. 13:5992 opens a narrow window for certain violent-crime juvenile matters, but it does not turn ordinary juvenile files into public court records.

A missing hit is not proof that no case exists. The cause could be a different court, an older unscanned file, a calendar that only shows future dates, a seal, an expungement, or a search mismatch. Ask the responsible clerk about the available route. If access is limited, a written request can seek the statutory basis and any segregable public portion of the Caddo Parish court docket.

How the Clerk Keeps Docket Records

The Caddo Parish Clerk of Court, Mike Spence, keeps the First Judicial District Court's civil suits, criminal cases, and minutes. Civil and domestic staff take in filings, manage records and evidence, enter court activity, and send out notices of judgment. On the criminal side, staff receive indictments and bills of information, issue subpoenas and bench warrants, and maintain the court minutes. When you make a request, name the case number. Say whether you need an index, the docket itself, a minute entry, a document image, a transcript, or a certified copy.

The Clerk's documented channels split copy work from web inquiries. Send copy requests to copies@caddoclerk.com. Civil and domestic matters go to civil@caddoclerk.com. Criminal questions go to criminal@caddoclerk.com or Dianne.Doughty@caddoclerk.com. Large criminal public-record requests go in writing to Dianne Doughty at the Room 103 address. Other large requests go to Mike Spence there. You can also reach him at Mike.Spence@caddoclerk.com. The copy-request fax is 318-629-1105. Before you mail originals or send anything, ask the correct desk first. Confirm the current delivery and payment instructions for Caddo Parish court records. The Caddo Parish Clerk's official homepage is the central source for Room 103 details, records categories, and the office's public service links.

The Clerk's channels separate a direct copy request from a paid web inquiry. Before you pay, confirm which record layer you need and whether plain or certified copies will do for the Caddo Parish court docket.

Caddo Court Record Visit Details

Planning a records trip in Shreveport? The Caddo Parish Courthouse sits at 501 Texas Street. The Clerk's public counter is in Room 103. Counter hours run 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, except holidays. Visitors may enter from either Milam Street or Texas Street. Each entrance has a Sheriff security checkpoint. The Daily Criminal Docket asks that phones be turned off inside the building. One rule from Code of Civil Procedure art. 251 matters here too. Private copying, scanning, or imaging equipment stays out of the clerk's office unless a court authorizes it. The Parish courthouse page confirms the building and its entrances before you head out.

When you reach the counter, bring the docket number or the exact party caption for your Caddo Parish case lookup. It helps to say up front what form you need, whether that is an index printout, a minute entry, the paper file, a plain document copy, or a certified copy. Caddo Parish's accessibility and security information covers entrances, accessible parking, automatic doors, elevators, Braille markings, and emergency-access features for anyone visiting the courthouse.

Getting inside the courthouse is not the same as getting a file. Some Caddo Parish records are restricted or sit with a specialized court, so call the right Clerk division before you travel.

City-by-City Court Dockets in Caddo Parish

Caddo Parish's five largest municipalities each handle local court records differently by 2020 Census population. No single portal covers them all. Shreveport runs a City Court records and calendar system. Blanchard posts a Mayor's Court calendar. Greenwood and Vivian list municipal contact routes rather than a general name-search portal. Oil City has no stable municipal court portal at all. That one takes extra care. Whatever the city, contact the court or agency named on your paper.

Caddo Record History and Context

Not every Caddo Parish court record starts at the same place online. The Clerk began computer indexing for criminal cases in 1980. Criminal minutes followed in 1984. Criminal documents have been scanned since 2002. Civil indexing dates to 1982, and civil filings have been scanned since 2002 as well. Older civil files are still being backscanned. Work continues toward earlier years. When a Caddo docket search turns up no image, the gap has a few common causes. It may reflect a paper copy, microfilm, a separate index, or a spot still waiting in the backscan queue. Ask the Clerk which of these applies before assuming nothing was filed.

The Louisiana Supreme Court's 2024 annual report puts Caddo filings at 14,489 for the year. The total breaks down by category. It includes 6,465 civil, 6,962 criminal, 804 traffic, and 258 juvenile filings. These are annual categories, a measure of how much work the parish courts handle. They are not a live docket count and not a hint about how any single case will go. Read each portal and calendar for the layer and date it truly covers.

Map and Directions to the Caddo Parish Courthouse

First Judicial District Court records for Caddo Parish, including civil, domestic, and adult criminal filings, are kept at the Caddo Parish Courthouse in downtown Shreveport, with the Clerk's public counter in Room 103 on the first floor. Juvenile Court and its clerk are at a separate building, 1835 Spring Street, so a juvenile matter does not route through this courthouse.

Both the Milam Street and Texas Street entrances are open, and the Sheriff's Office staffs armed security checkpoints at entry. The building has accessible parking on the east side near the main accessible entrance, push-button automatic doors, and three main elevators; mobile phones must be turned off inside the courthouse. A January 2022 electrical outage once closed the building entirely, so checking the parish's current notices before a visit is a reasonable precaution.