Murray County Court Docket Basics
A docket is the court's event trail for a case. In Murray County District Court, docket information can appear as scheduled hearings, Register of Actions entries, filing events, orders, dispositions, and calendar rows. A docket entry may tell a user that a pre-trial, initial appearance, plea hearing, commitment hearing, status conference, or scheduling conference is set, but it may not include the document or the full facts behind the event.
Murray County is in Minnesota's Fifth Judicial District. The Fifth Judicial District is an administrative district, not a separate case-hearing court for Murray matters. Local hearings occur through Murray County District Court, while appeals usually go to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. District Court handles criminal, civil, family, probate, juvenile, traffic, and conciliation calendars for the county.
Note: A docket helps track case movement, but certified documents must be requested through Court Administration.
Find Murray County Dockets Online
For scheduled hearings, use MCRO Hearing Search. Hearing Search can locate District Court hearings by name, case number, attorney, judicial officer, and related search types. For a case's longer event history, use MCRO Case Search and open the case details. For same-day local scheduling, the research identifies the Murray County daily calendar PDF as the public calendar source.
The hearing-search image comes from the MCRO Hearing Search portal.
Hearing Search is the closest online fit for Murray County court dockets because it focuses on scheduled court appearances rather than full document retrieval.
- Open MCRO Hearing Search and accept the public-access terms when prompted.
- Search by case number if known, or use name search with the Murray County location filter.
- Review hearing date, time, location, judicial officer, hearing type, and party role.
- Use MCRO Case Search to see the Register of Actions for the same case.
- Call Court Administration when a hearing is missing, sealed, confidential, or too current for online display.
Murray County Daily Court Calendar
The Murray County public daily District Court calendar is posted as a PDF. The research notes that it is posted at 7:00 a.m. each business day and updated hourly, while printed courthouse calendars are the most current. Calendar rows observed in research included public case categories such as family, probate or mental-health context, criminal, juvenile, and traffic or violation-bureau type matters.
The daily calendar is a docket snapshot. It does not show street addresses, dates of birth, full charge facts, document links, or confidential matters that are excluded from public display. It does show enough to confirm the public hearing schedule and connect a calendar row back to a case number for MCRO search.
| Calendar Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Party Name | Public party name for the calendar row, sometimes line-wrapped. |
| Hearing Location | Research observed Courtroom as the hearing location. |
| Hearing Date and Time | The scheduled date and time for the listed appearance. |
| Judicial Officer | Observed officers included Stephen J. Ferrazzano, II and Michelle A. Dietrich. |
| Hearing Type | Status conference, commitment hearing, admit/deny hearing, pre-trial, scheduling conference, Rule 8, or plea hearing. |
| Connection Type | Party relationship to the hearing, such as attorney, respondent, petitioner, or defendant. |
| Case Number | Minnesota-format case number, such as CR, FA, PR, JV, or VB category examples from research. |
Murray County Docket Sources
Official sources did not identify a separate Murray County municipal court, county court, or justice court docket portal. Minnesota District Court is the local trial court, and Murray County District Court is the hearing venue for local court records. The Court Administrator handles day-to-day case processing, records, calendars, fines, fees, restitution, and court files.
| Source | Best Use | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| MCRO Hearing Search | Future and scheduled public hearings. | Confidential and not-remotely-accessible cases are not posted. |
| Murray Daily Calendar PDF | Same-day public District Court calendar rows. | Printed courthouse calendars may be more current. |
| MCRO Case Search | Register of Actions, docket events, and case details. | Pending criminal name search and older-document limits apply. |
| Court Administration | Hearing questions, certified copies, older files, and records not available online. | Staff cannot give legal advice. |
Murray County Dockets vs Records
A docket points to what happened or what is scheduled. A full court record can include the pleadings, motions, affidavits, orders, public documents, disposition, and sentencing or judgment materials behind those entries. For example, a docket may show a plea hearing in a criminal case, while the full criminal case record may show the charging document, plea, disposition, sentence, fines, restitution, and probation terms.
Use Murray County court records for broader case-file access. Use dockets when the immediate need is a hearing date, case event, courtroom schedule, or quick progress check.
| Docket | Full Case Record | |
|---|---|---|
| Core Use | Track hearings and case events. | Review filings, orders, documents, and outcomes. |
| Common Fields | Date, time, hearing type, officer, case number, party role. | Register of Actions, documents, dispositions, judgments, financial entries. |
| Access Path | Hearing Search, daily calendar, case details. | MCRO Case Search, Document Search, Court Administration. |
| Certification | Not a certified record. | Certified copies must come from Court Administration. |
Murray County Docket Search Limits
MCRO search limits matter for Murray County dockets. The MCRO FAQ explains that the system is free, supports mobile browsers, times out after inactivity, allows wildcard searching after two characters, and supports Sounds Like searches when enough letters are similar. It also explains that some pending criminal, traffic, and petty misdemeanor matters without conviction may not return by defendant name but may return by case number.
The FAQ image comes from the Minnesota Judicial Branch MCRO FAQ.
The FAQ is useful for docket searches because a missing name result does not always mean no Murray County case or hearing exists.
Remote access is narrower than courthouse-terminal access. Juvenile, domestic abuse, harassment restraining order, public civil-commitment document, sealed, and expunged record limits can affect what appears online. MCRO is also not an official criminal-history background-check source. The research identifies the Minnesota BCA Public Criminal History Search as the official channel for public criminal-history checks.
Murray County Docket Help
When online docket information is unclear, contact Murray County Court Administration rather than relying on third-party listings. Have the case number, party name, hearing date, and the source used, such as Hearing Search or the daily calendar. If the question involves a traffic fine or payment, the Minnesota Court Payment Center may be the correct payment contact, but Court Administration remains the local contact for court file and schedule questions.
Murray County Court Administrator
Murray County Courts Building
PO Box 57
2848 Broadway Avenue
Slayton, MN 56172
507-831-7008
8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday
District Court's Judicial Branch contact for Murray County lists phone (507) 873-7001 on the Murray County District Court page. Court staff can provide access and scheduling information, but they cannot advise a party how to handle a case. If a docket question is really about arrest data or sheriff records rather than a court hearing, the Murray County Sheriff's Office under Sheriff Heath Landsman is the separate law-enforcement custodian.