Fresno Court Docket Access

Fresno County Superior Court manages dockets for over one million residents in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley. The court handles thousands of cases each year spanning civil, criminal, family, probate, and traffic matters. You can search dockets online through a public portal that covers most case types filed in Fresno County. Tyler Technologies Odyssey software runs the system. The main courthouse sits at 1100 Van Ness Avenue in downtown Fresno. Other locations serve different areas of the county. Remote access to court dockets is free for basic searches but document downloads may have charges depending on what you need.

Fresno County Online Dockets

The public portal is at publicportal.fresno.courts.ca.gov/fresnoportal/. This site gives you remote access to court dockets from any device. You can search by case number or party name. The system shows the case summary, register of actions, and sometimes court documents depending on the case type and access rules.

Civil case searches work best if you remove the last three letters from the case number before you search. This is a quirk of how the system indexes civil files. If your search comes up empty, try trimming those letters off the end. Criminal and traffic cases do not need this adjustment. Just enter the full case number as it appears on your paperwork in Fresno County.

Unlawful detainer cases have a sixty day delay. You cannot view these eviction cases online until sixty days pass after the complaint gets filed. This rule protects tenant privacy during the early stages of the case. After the delay, the docket becomes available through the public portal just like other civil cases.

Fresno County Courthouses

The B.F. Sisk Courthouse handles civil cases. It sits at 1100 Van Ness Avenue, Fresno, CA 93724. The phone line is (559) 457-1900. This is where you go for lawsuits, contract disputes, personal injury cases, and other civil matters. The clerk office has public terminals where you can search dockets and view files.

Criminal cases go through a different building. The criminal division sits at the same address complex but uses a separate phone line at (559) 457-1700. Traffic tickets, misdemeanor charges, and felony prosecutions all get processed through the criminal division. Each division keeps its own clerk staff but all cases feed into the same online portal system in Fresno County.

Court hours run from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on weekdays. Lines can get long in the morning. Bring photo ID when you visit. Security screens everyone at the entrance. Public computers in the lobby let you search for cases. If you need help, ask a clerk. They can tell you how to find your case or get copies of documents from the file.

How to Search Dockets

Case numbers give the fastest results. Every case has a unique number assigned when it gets filed. If you have the number, enter it in the portal search box. The system pulls up the case right away. You then see the full docket with every filing and hearing listed in date order.

Name searches take more work. The system might return many cases with similar names. You have to pick the right one by checking details like the file date or case type. Make sure you spell the name exactly as it appears in court records. Small changes in spelling can cause the search to miss the case you want.

The docket shows each step in the case. You see when papers were filed, when hearings happened, and what the judge ordered. This gives you the full history from start to finish. Some dockets are short because the case settled fast. Others run dozens of pages with years of entries in Fresno County.

Types of Cases

Civil dockets include lawsuits over money, property, or contracts. Personal injury cases show up here too. The docket lists the plaintiff, defendant, and every motion or hearing that took place. Many civil cases settle before trial. You will see a dismissal or settlement notice on the docket when that happens.

Criminal dockets track prosecutions from arrest through sentencing. The docket shows the charges, plea, and any hearings along the way. Bail amounts appear if the defendant posted bond. Trial dates show up if the case goes that far. Sentencing entries list the punishment the judge imposed in Fresno County.

Family law dockets handle divorce, custody, support, and restraining orders. These cases often have many hearings over months or years as the court works through financial and parenting issues. Probate dockets manage estates and conservatorships. Traffic dockets cover citations and infractions. Small claims dockets list disputes under ten thousand dollars.

Court Record Fees

Online searches are free. You can look up as many dockets as you want through the public portal. Viewing the register of actions costs nothing. Fees apply when you need copies of documents from the case file. The portal may let you download some documents. Prices vary based on the file type and size.

At the courthouse, copy fees run fifty cents per page. The clerk can print anything from the file for this rate. Certified copies add a forty dollar fee plus the per page charge. You need certified copies if you plan to file the document in another court or show it to a government agency as proof of what the court ordered in Fresno County.

Search fees apply if the clerk has to spend more than ten minutes finding your records. This is rare for recent cases. Older files that are not in the computer may take longer to locate. The search fee is fifteen dollars when it applies. Most people avoid this by using the online portal first to see if the case is there.

Access Restrictions

Most court dockets are public. You can view civil, criminal, probate, and traffic cases without limits. Some case types have restrictions under California law. Family law cases may only show limited information online. The portal might give you the case number and parties but hide details about hearings or financial orders. You may need to visit the courthouse to see the full family law docket.

Juvenile cases do not appear in public searches. These are confidential by law. Sealed cases also stay hidden from the portal. If a judge sealed a file, you cannot see it unless you have permission from the court. Some criminal records get expunged or dismissed under state law. Those cases might show as dismissed on the docket even though the arrest still happened in Fresno County.

Appellate Records

Fresno County is in the Fifth Appellate District. Appeals go to the Court of Appeal in Fresno. The appellate court sits in the same city but runs its own docket system. You can search appellate cases at appellate.courts.ca.gov. The Fifth District covers Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, Stanislaus, Tulare, and Tuolumne counties.

When a case gets appealed, the trial court docket will show a notice of appeal. The appellate court then opens a new case with its own docket. That docket tracks the briefing, oral arguments, and the final opinion. If you want to see what happened after the trial ended, check the appellate database for the same party names or the trial court case number.

Major Cities in Fresno County

Several large cities sit within Fresno County. Court dockets for residents of these cities are maintained by the county Superior Court system:

Nearby Counties

Fresno County borders other counties that maintain their own court systems: