Search St. Bernard Parish Court Records

How to Search St. Bernard Parish Court Records

The main local search path is the St. Bernard Parish Clerk of Court Public Records Search, a paid Clerk portal for indexed records. The portal is branded for St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana Clerk of Court Randy S. Nunez, and it is the official online route identified in the research for civil, criminal, and land record subscriptions. It is not a simple anonymous name search. The public login screen requires an account, a User ID, and a password before a user can reach indexed material or purchase images and minutes.

Before searching, separate the record category from the office that holds it. District-court civil, criminal, divorce, probate and succession, land, mortgage, and marriage materials route through the Clerk. Police reports, accident reports, incarceration letters, and body-camera footage route through the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office. Parish-government administrative records use the parish public-records request process, and that parish process expressly excludes marriage certificates, divorce certificates, criminal certificates, and police reports.

1. Open the St. Bernard Parish Clerk Public Records Search and create an account or sign in with an existing User ID and password.
2. Review the Certified Dates information before relying on a search result, because the portal tells users to check indexing dates and statistics first.
3. Select the subscription category that matches the file: civil, criminal, land, or a combined plan.
4. Search within the correct category rather than assuming one index covers every court, property, probate, and criminal document.
5. Use the image or minute options when available, then contact the Clerk at 504-271-3434 if the record is older, sealed, not indexed, or needed as a certified copy.

The Clerk login page also lists technical requirements that matter for document retrieval: current Chrome, Edge, or Firefox, HTML5 support, pop-ups allowed, cookies and Javascript enabled, Adobe Reader available, browser PDF viewing disabled in favor of Adobe Reader, and a screen resolution of at least 1024 by 768. These details are practical because a failed document image may be a browser setting issue rather than proof that no record exists.

The official federal trial-court route is separate. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana handles federal cases from St. Bernard Parish, but those records are not maintained by the parish Clerk.

Use the federal court site only when the case is federal, such as a federal criminal charge, civil-rights case, bankruptcy-related appeal, maritime case, or other matter filed in federal court rather than the 34th Judicial District Court.

St. Bernard Parish Court Records Search Fields

The visible Clerk portal fields are account and access fields, not public case-search fields. No sample public case was viewable without login and subscription, so the field inventory below describes what the portal exposes before access. That limitation is important for users who expect a free public docket search. A person may need to create an account, buy the proper subscription, and then search by the portal's internal civil, criminal, or land index options after login.

Types of St. Bernard Parish Court Records

The 34th Judicial District Court is the parish's primary trial court. It states that it has original jurisdiction over civil and criminal matters in St. Bernard Parish and operates through five elected divisions, Division A through Division E. The Clerk of Court maintains the filed records that arise from those cases. Justice of the Peace courts and constables are separate local lower-court channels for smaller civil, eviction, warrant, and similar local matters, and they are organized in districts A through K.

Court-record users should keep the local court hierarchy in mind. A filed district-court case is not the same as a sheriff report, a DA screening note, a jail roster entry, or a federal PACER case. A docket can show events in a case, while the full file may include petitions, motions, minute entries, judgments, orders, notices, and images. For a narrower explanation of event listings, see the local court dockets page.

• Civil records: Petitions, answers, motions, service returns, minute entries, judgments, liens, garnishments, and appeal notices filed in the 34th JDC.
• Criminal records: Bills of information or indictments, charges, arraignments, pleas, bond orders, motions, trial settings, sentencing, probation terms, and dispositions.
• Family and divorce records: District-court civil and family filings, including divorce matters, custody, support, protective orders, and domestic proceedings where public access is not restricted.
• Probate and succession records: Louisiana succession filings, wills filed in estates, inventories, bonds, administration papers, and judgments of possession.
• Traffic and citation records: Court records tied to citations and mandatory-appearance matters, distinct from Louisiana OMV driver-history records.
• Land, mortgage, and judgment records: Property-related records may overlap with judgments, liens, successions, and court filings indexed by the Clerk.

What St. Bernard Parish Court Records Show

A court record is a case file or indexed file maintained by the custodian. For St. Bernard Parish district-court matters, likely fields include the case number, court, division, judge, filing date, case type, parties, attorneys, docket or minute entries, document images, status, financial entries, and redactions. The exact public labels inside the paid portal were not visible without subscription, so users should treat the following table as a field inventory based on the research rather than a promise that every field appears in every case.

The sample record limitation is straightforward: the Clerk portal was inspected on June 29, 2026, and no public sample case record was viewable before login. The visible access layer showed User ID, Password, Password Reminder, Create Account, Certified Dates, subscription pricing, image and minute pricing, browser requirements, Adobe Reader/PDF instructions, and shopping or payment support. Public-facing case images are gated behind account and subscription access.

Public Access Framework for St. Bernard Parish Court Records

Louisiana's public-records framework starts with custody and exceptions. La. R.S. 44:31 generally gives adult requesters the ability to inspect, copy, or reproduce public records unless an exception applies. La. R.S. 44:32 addresses custodian duties and copies or reproductions on request. For court records, the correct custodian is usually the Clerk of Court, while sheriff, parish government, federal court, or JP court records must be requested from the office that actually holds them.

The Clerk portal publishes subscription and image pricing. Civil, criminal, and land daily subscriptions were visible at $20.00 each; monthly civil, criminal, and land subscriptions were visible at $40.00 each; combined monthly plans included civil and land at $50.00 and land, civil, and criminal at $70.00. The portal also showed annual plans and $1.00 pricing for land records images, criminal images, criminal minutes, civil images, and civil minutes. Fees can change, so the portal and Clerk office remain the controlling sources for current copy charges.

The public-records rule does not make every file instantly available online. A record may be non-digitized, older than the certified index range, filed under a different name, held by a different custodian, or restricted because of state law or a court order. The most reliable fallback is to contact the Clerk with the party name, case number if known, filing year, case type, and whether a plain or certified copy is needed.

The research also confirms that St. Bernard Parish is within the Eastern District of Louisiana for federal matters. The Eastern District parish information page identifies St. Bernard among the parishes in that federal district.

That federal district listing is useful when a case involves a federal charge or federal civil claim, but it does not move parish Clerk records into the federal system.

Records That Are Sealed or Confidential in St. Bernard Parish

Louisiana law restricts several categories of records. Juvenile-court records and reports are confidential under Louisiana Children's Code art. 412 except for traffic violations and express statutory exceptions. Sealed cases should not be available through an ordinary public portal. Expunged criminal records are removed from public access under Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure articles 972 and 973, although expungement does not destroy the record. Adoption records, mental-health proceedings, protected victim information, minor identifiers, Social Security numbers, financial account numbers, and similar identifiers may be sealed or redacted.

Law-enforcement records also require caution. La. R.S. 44:3 restricts certain law-enforcement records, investigatory records, and arrest records before final conviction or plea.

That statute explains why an arrest, investigation, or police report may be unavailable even when a related court docket or final court disposition can later be inspected through the Clerk.

A person seeking access to a sealed record generally needs a court order or qualifying party status. For expungement, the request is filed through the district-court and Clerk system, not through the parish public-records web form. The requester should identify the arresting agency, docket or case number, disposition, conviction status, and the legal basis for access or expungement. The Clerk can point to filing procedure and fees, but eligibility and legal strategy require legal advice from an attorney or qualified legal-help provider.

Federal, Bankruptcy, and Appeal Records

Some St. Bernard Parish residents and businesses have records outside the parish court system. Federal civil and criminal cases are searched through federal court tools, not through the parish Clerk portal. The Eastern District of Louisiana is headquartered at 500 Poydras Street in New Orleans, and federal building access requires valid picture identification according to the research. For electronic federal case lookup, PACER and CM/ECF are the official court-record systems.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana is the federal court route for Chapter 7, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, adversary proceedings, claims, discharges, and bankruptcy docket records.

A bankruptcy case may affect a local judgment, garnishment, lien, or property issue, but the bankruptcy file itself is a federal record.

Federal appeals from Louisiana federal trial courts go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

The Fifth Circuit route is separate from Louisiana's state appellate route, where St. Bernard Parish trial-court appeals are associated with the Louisiana Court of Appeal, Fourth Circuit.

The Federal PACER Case Locator is the general federal account system for nationwide federal case lookup.

PACER can help when the case number, federal court, or party name points outside the St. Bernard Parish Clerk's custody.

In-Person Court Record Requests

For local district-court records, contact or visit the St. Bernard Parish Clerk of Court at the courthouse in Chalmette. The Clerk's office is the records hub for civil, criminal, land, marriage, probate/succession, and related filings. Bring the party name, case number if known, filing year, record type, and copy preference. If the request involves a pending hearing, order, or courtroom issue, a judge's division staff may be relevant, but the Clerk is the starting point for filed records and copies.

Do not use the parish government complex as the default destination for court filings or Clerk copies. Research identifies the parish government public-records counter separately at 8201 W Judge Perez Drive, while the 34th JDC and Clerk are listed at 1101 W. St. Bernard Highway. Justice of the Peace records should be directed to the relevant 44th JPC district rather than assumed to be in the district-court portal.