What Is a Tunica County Court Docket
A docket is the official timeline of a case. It lists each filing, motion, order, hearing, and ruling in the order they happened, with a date next to every entry. Clerks build the docket as a case moves, so it grows from the first complaint to the final judgment. The docket is the index to the case. It is not the case file itself.
The full case file holds the actual paper. That means the signed complaint, the motions, the exhibits, the orders, and the judgment. A docket points to those documents but rarely reproduces them in full. A line might read "motion filed" or "order entered" without showing the document behind it. To read the document, a person usually requests the file or a certified copy from the clerk who keeps it.
Dockets also differ by court level. A Tunica County Circuit Court docket tracks felony and major civil cases, while a Chancery Court docket follows divorce, probate, and equity matters. Justice Court and Municipal Court keep their own calendars for tickets and misdemeanors. Each court controls its own docket and its own access rules.
Court Levels That Keep Tunica County Dockets
Mississippi does not run a single county trial court, so docket information is spread across several courts. Tunica County sits in the Eleventh Circuit Court District for circuit matters and the Seventh Chancery Court District for chancery matters. Lower-level cases stay in local Justice Court or the Town of Tunica Municipal Court. Each forum produces a different docket for a different kind of case.
- Circuit Court: felony criminal cases, larger civil suits, jury trials, and appeals from lower courts.
- Chancery Court: divorce, child custody, probate, guardianship, conservatorship, and land or equity disputes.
- Justice Court: sheriff and Highway Patrol tickets, many misdemeanors, and small claims in the Northern and Southern districts.
- Municipal Court: tickets and ordinance cases written by Tunica Police, heard at the Town of Tunica courtroom.
- Youth Court: juvenile matters, with dockets closed to the public by statute.
Choosing the court first saves time. A divorce hearing will never appear on a Justice Court calendar, and a speeding ticket will not show up on a Circuit Court docket. Match the case type to the court, then go to that court's docket channel.
Circuit Court Dockets Through MEC
Felony and major civil cases in Tunica County run through Circuit Court, and the docket for those cases lives in Mississippi Electronic Courts. MEC is the statewide e-filing and case-management system that covers Circuit, Chancery, and County Courts. According to the Mississippi Judiciary MEC page, Tunica County Circuit Court opened voluntary attorney e-filing on November 25, 2024 and made it mandatory on December 2, 2024. That shift moved current circuit dockets into the electronic system.
MEC access is tied to registration through the PAMEC online registration page, and detailed case search generally requires an account. The system does not promise free public document downloads, so a registered login or clerk help is often needed to view full entries. For circuit cases that are not visible online, the Tunica County Circuit Clerk can run a record search or pull copies for a fee.
The Circuit Clerk office is at 1300 School Street and answers at 662-363-2842 during weekday business hours. Staff can confirm whether a circuit docket entry exists and what it shows.
Seventh Chancery Court District Dockets
Chancery cases use a different docket channel. Divorce, custody, probate, guardianship, conservatorship, and equity matters for Tunica County are heard in the Seventh Chancery Court District, which also serves Bolivar, Coahoma, Leflore, Quitman, and Tallahatchie counties. The district publishes a calendar of hearings online, which makes it one of the more open docket tools available locally. You can reach the Seventh Chancery Court District website to see how the calendar is organized.
The district site offers a Master Docket and a Search By Date view, plus a location filter that narrows the calendar to a single county. For Tunica matters, the Tunica chancery docket page filters the calendar to hearings set in the county. That page is the fastest way to spot when a Tunica divorce or estate case is on the chancery calendar.
The chancery calendar also sorts by chancellor, which helps when a case is assigned to a specific judge. The district lists three chancellors plus a visiting judge, and the chancellors directory shows each one with contact details. The docket field inventory below outlines the navigation built into the Seventh Chancery docket.
The chancellor categories let users open a single judge's calendar, which is useful when a hearing notice names the chancellor but not the date. The table reflects the docket tools the district site provides.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Master Docket | Full calendar navigation for the Seventh Chancery District. |
| Search By Date | Date or calendar view used to find hearings on a chosen day. |
| Location | County filter, including a dedicated Tunica location page. |
| Chancellor Category | Filter by Catherine Farris-Carter, W.M. Sanders, Willie J. Perkins Sr., or the visiting judge. |
Note: The chancery calendar shows hearing schedule context, but full divorce, probate, or guardianship files are requested through the Chancery Clerk at 662-363-2451.
Chancellors Who Sign Tunica County Dockets
Three chancellors hear the Seventh Chancery District cases that touch Tunica County, and each keeps a separate calendar. Knowing which chancellor is assigned helps a person read a docket, because hearing entries and orders carry the signing judge. Chancellor Catherine Farris-Carter is one of the three, and her contact details appear on the Farris-Carter chancellor page.
Her chambers and court staff handle scheduling for the cases on her calendar, so a docket entry tied to her court routes through that office. Chancellor W.M. Sanders also hears district cases, and the Sanders chancellor page lists his court reporter and staff attorney for scheduling questions.
When a docket lists a continuance or a new hearing date under his court, the assigned staff can confirm the entry. The third chancellor is Willie J. Perkins Sr., and the Perkins chancellor page carries his chambers and court administrator contacts.
Reading the chancellor name on a docket entry tells a person which chambers to call when a hearing date or order needs to be confirmed.
Justice and Municipal Court Schedules
Lower-level dockets sit with the local courts rather than a statewide portal. Tunica County Justice Court handles sheriff and Mississippi Highway Patrol tickets, many misdemeanors, and small claims, split between a Northern District and a Southern District. There is no full public case-search portal for these dockets, so the schedule and case status come from the court directly. For sheriff or Highway Patrol citations, the Justice Court line is 662-363-2178.
Municipal cases follow a separate track. The Town of Tunica Municipal Court handles tickets and ordinance cases written by Tunica Police, and court begins at 9:30 a.m. in the courtroom at 1196 Edwards Avenue. The municipal page warns that tickets issued by the Sheriff or Highway Patrol belong in Justice Court, not Municipal Court, so confirm the issuing agency before calling.
Note: Justice Court fees and fines can be handled through the county online services payment portal, but case status and hearing dates still come from the court.
Sample Docket Entries in a Tunica County Case
A docket reads as a stack of short entries, each one marking something that happened in the case. The wording is brief, but each line maps to a real step in the proceeding. The table below shows the kinds of entries that appear in Tunica County circuit, chancery, and lower-court dockets, drawn from the typical events a Mississippi case records.
| Docket Entry | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Complaint filed | The document that opens many civil cases is entered. |
| Summons issued | Notice goes out telling a party a case has been filed. |
| Subpoena issued | A command to appear or produce documents is sent. |
| Motion filed | A party makes a written request asking the court to act. |
| Order entered | The judge or chancellor signs a written ruling. |
| Judgment entered | A final, enforceable decision is recorded. |
| Continuance | A hearing or trial is postponed to a later date. |
| Hearing or trial setting | A date is placed on the calendar for the case. |
| Plea petition | A guilty-plea petition is filed in a criminal case. |
| Sentencing order | The court records the punishment in a criminal case. |
| Appeal notice | A party signals an appeal to a higher court. |
Criminal dockets carry extra lines for charge, statute, plea, disposition, sentence, probation terms, fines, and bond. Civil and chancery dockets lean toward complaints, motions, orders, garnishments, and judgments. The mix tells a reader what stage the case has reached.
How to Read a Tunica County Docket
Docket lines use legal shorthand, and a short glossary clears up most of it. The terms below come up again and again across Tunica County circuit, chancery, and lower-court calendars. Knowing them turns a string of brief entries into a clear story of how the case moved.
- Docket
- The chronological list of every event in a case.
- Motion
- A written request asking the court to take some action.
- Order
- A judge's or chancellor's written ruling on a request.
- Judgment
- The final, enforceable decision that ends the case.
- Continuance
- A postponement that moves a hearing to a new date.
- Disposition
- The outcome of a charge or the whole case.
Two more terms help with criminal dockets. A capias is a warrant-like process that commands an arrest, often after a missed court date. A bench warrant is issued by a judge for the same reason. When either appears, the case has stalled because a party failed to show, and the next steps usually run through the court that signed the order.
Full case records back up these entries, and the wider set of filings lives in the Tunica County court records held by the clerk for each court.
Docket vs. Full Case Record
It helps to keep the two apart. A docket is the index of events, often quick to scan and sometimes free to view. A full case record is the stack of actual documents, which can require a fee, a clerk request, or a courthouse visit. The comparison below lays out the practical difference.
| Docket | Full Case Record | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | List of dated entries | Complete documents and exhibits |
| Access | Often online through MEC or the chancery calendar | May require a clerk request or fee |
| Use | Track hearings and case progress | Legal review, copies, and evidence |
For estate and guardianship files, the documents behind a chancery docket line are held in Tunica County probate records kept by the Chancery Clerk. A docket entry tells a reader the order exists, but the signed order itself comes from the case file.
Older and Confidential Dockets
Not every docket is online, and not every docket is open. MEC carries current Tunica County circuit cases, but older matters filed before the system took over may exist only in the clerk's paper or local records. When an entry cannot be found online, the next step is the clerk who holds it. Call the Circuit Clerk at 662-363-2842 for circuit cases, or the Chancery Clerk at 662-363-2451 for divorce, probate, and equity matters, and ask staff to locate the docket.
Some dockets are closed by law. Youth Court records are confidential under Mississippi Code Sections 43-21-251 and 43-21-261, so juvenile dockets are not part of a public search. Adoption proceedings are confidential under Section 93-17-25, and sealed or expunged cases are removed from the public docket by statute or court order. A search of those matters usually requires party status, attorney status, or a court order.
Note: When a docket is sealed, expunged, juvenile, or adoption-related, expect access to be denied or limited to authorized parties rather than the general public.