St. Landry Parish Court Dockets Defined
A docket is the court's working list of case events. In St. Landry Parish, a docket can show filings, hearing dates, minute entries, motions, orders, continuances, pleas, dispositions, and other actions tied to a case number. It helps a reader follow where the case stands. It does not always provide the full text of pleadings, exhibits, certified judgments, or scanned documents. Those documents may require ClerkConnect printing, a clerk request, or a visit to the correct court office.
The local court structure affects docket research. St. Landry Parish is served by the 27th Judicial District Court, which has four divisions, A through D, in Opelousas. The parish also has official city-court channels for Opelousas and Eunice. A felony docket, a civil suit docket, a city traffic docket, and a federal criminal docket are different records held by different offices.
St. Landry Parish District Court Dockets
The 27th Judicial District Court local rules provide unusual detail about local docket timing. The court is composed of Divisions A, B, C, and D. Criminal sessions rotate by month: Division A in January, May, and September; Division B in February, June, and October; Division C in March, July, and November; and Division D in April, August, and December. Civil sessions are held in the other months for each division, although judges may set civil matters during criminal months and criminal matters during civil months.
Random allotment also shapes the docket. The local rules say civil and criminal cases are randomly allotted equally among the four judges. Traffic, non-support, protective order, and juvenile matters are exceptions and are assigned month-to-month to the criminal judge on the bench at the time of allotment. For felony arrests, the new felony case is allotted among the four divisions, and the District Attorney may later consolidate more than one felony case into one division.
| Division | Criminal Session Months | Division Phone |
|---|---|---|
| Division A | January, May, September | 337-948-0588 |
| Division B | February, June, October | 337-948-0586 |
| Division C | March, July, November | 337-948-0584 |
| Division D | April, August, December | 337-948-0580 |
Find St. Landry Parish Court Dockets
For district-court docket access, start with the Clerk of Court's ClerkConnect registration page. The clerk names civil, criminal, traffic, family, and probate records for St. Landry Parish. If the docket is not online, the Court Division is the direct local fallback because the clerk's courts overview says civil suits and records of criminal proceedings are kept through that division.
- Confirm whether the matter is district court, city court, federal court, bankruptcy court, or a state driver-record matter.
- Use ClerkConnect for St. Landry Parish civil, criminal, traffic, family, or probate docket lookup where online access is available.
- Keep the case number, party name, division, and approximate hearing date ready before contacting the clerk.
- Call the Clerk Court Division at 337-942-5606 ext. 5113 when certified entries or offline records are needed.
- Use Opelousas or Eunice city-court contacts for city traffic, ordinance, or ward-level docket questions.
The first federal docket image assigned to this page comes from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana homepage.
Federal docket research is separate from St. Landry Parish court dockets and does not use the ClerkConnect parish court portal.
St. Landry Parish Docket Entries
No public sample St. Landry Parish ClerkConnect docket entry was verified without subscription access. The table therefore uses only verified local-rule and clerk-source concepts. A full docket entry may have more fields after login, but unsupported field labels should not be assumed from another parish or a third-party site.
| Docket Element | What It Means Locally |
|---|---|
| Case category | Civil, criminal, traffic, family, or probate as named by the St. Landry ClerkConnect page. |
| Division | One of the 27th JDC divisions A through D, unless the matter follows an exception rule. |
| Allotment | Random assignment among four judges for ordinary civil and criminal cases. |
| Session month | The month in which a division is scheduled for criminal or civil sessions under local rules. |
| Minute entry | The clerk's short official record of what occurred in court. |
| Disposition | The outcome of a claim, motion, charge, or case event. |
Courts With St. Landry Parish Dockets
Several official court channels can hold docket information for people and cases tied to St. Landry Parish. The 27th JDC is the main district-court venue for civil and criminal cases in Opelousas. Opelousas City Court and Eunice City Court can control city-level or ward-level matters. Federal cases use Western District federal systems, and bankruptcy cases use the Western District bankruptcy court and PACER.
- 27th Judicial District Court handles St. Landry Parish district-court civil and criminal cases through four local divisions.
- St. Landry Parish Clerk of Court keeps court-record and docket access channels for civil, criminal, traffic, family, and probate files.
- Opelousas City Court and Eunice City Court handle local city-court matters that may not appear in the district-court docket route.
- U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana handles federal civil and criminal matters tied to the district.
- U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Louisiana handles bankruptcy dockets and filings through federal systems.
The Lafayette courthouse image comes from the Western District's official Lafayette location page.
The Lafayette office is one federal location relevant to many St. Landry Parish federal docket questions, but local district-court dockets remain with the state court and clerk.
St. Landry Parish Dockets vs Records
A docket tracks the case path. The full record holds the documents. That difference matters when a person wants to know the next hearing date versus when a person needs a certified judgment, motion, transcript, or file copy. A docket can be enough to see that a hearing occurred or that a disposition was entered. It may not prove the full terms of an order.
| Point | Docket | Full Case Record |
|---|---|---|
| Format | Chronological event list or schedule. | Documents, pleadings, orders, minute entries, and copies. |
| Best use | Track hearings, filings, continuances, pleas, and outcomes. | Review legal claims, judgments, evidence, orders, and certified copies. |
| Access route | ClerkConnect, clerk phone, division calendar, city court, or PACER. | ClerkConnect print access, clerk counter, mail request, or federal CM/ECF/PACER. |
| Limits | May omit scanned documents or sealed details. | May require fees, certification, redaction, or court permission. |
Federal St. Landry Parish Court Dockets
Federal dockets are not parish court dockets. St. Landry Parish falls within the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Federal civil cases, federal criminal cases, prisoner civil-rights cases, habeas matters, and federal agency litigation are filed in federal court. Bankruptcy cases are filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Those dockets use CM/ECF and PACER rather than the parish ClerkConnect route.
The federal court's CM/ECF and PACER page explains electronic filing and federal docket access. The PACER service is the official federal account system for district, bankruptcy, and appellate case access. The bankruptcy court also has a PACER LAWBK court lookup page.
The CM/ECF image below comes from the Western District's official federal filing and PACER page.
CM/ECF is the federal filing system, while PACER is the federal case-access account system used to view docket records.
The bankruptcy image comes from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Louisiana homepage.
Bankruptcy docket searches should use the federal bankruptcy court and PACER systems, not the St. Landry Parish district-court clerk path.
The PACER image assigned to this docket page comes from PACER's official case access site.
PACER is the account-based federal court-record service for district, bankruptcy, and appellate dockets.
The LAWBK lookup image comes from the PACER court lookup page for Louisiana Western Bankruptcy Court.
That court-code lookup helps separate bankruptcy docket research from state district-court docket research in St. Landry Parish.
Reading St. Landry Parish Dockets
Common docket terms should be read in context. A motion is a written request to the judge. A minute entry is the clerk's short official record of what happened. A continuance means a hearing or trial was postponed. A disposition is the outcome of a charge, claim, motion, or case. An arraignment is a criminal-court event where charges are read and a plea is entered. A bill of information is a prosecutor-filed charging document used in Louisiana criminal cases.
Docket timing can also reflect the local division calendar. A criminal matter in Division A may have a different session month from a civil matter in Division C, and traffic, non-support, protective order, and juvenile matters follow exception rules rather than ordinary random allotment. That is why a St. Landry Parish court docket should be read with the division, case type, and issuing court in mind. If a docket entry appears to conflict with a notice, order, or bond paper, the clerk or issuing court should be used to verify the controlling date.
For criminal docket issues, the court docket is related to but distinct from the full St. Landry Parish criminal court record. For all case types, the broader St. Landry Parish court records path explains how dockets fit into the clerk's complete record-access system.
Note: A docket entry can show that an event occurred without giving the full text of the filed document.