Search Ozaukee County Court Dockets

Searching the Ozaukee County Court Docket

Start your Ozaukee County court docket search at Wisconsin Circuit Court Access. Most people call it WCCA. Agree to the public-access terms, then pick the circuit court search. Set the county filter to Ozaukee when it appears. The fastest route is a full case number. If you do not have one, the Ozaukee County Clerk of Circuit Court suggests searching with just a first and last name first. Adding more name details can shrink a long list of results. It can also hide the match you want, though. That happens when the court record spells the name a different way.

1. Accept the WCCA public-access agreement and open circuit case search.
2. Select Ozaukee County and enter the full case number when known.
3. Otherwise, search the first and last name, then narrow if needed.
4. Match the case type, branch, filing date, status, and caption.
5. Read events in date order and confirm the newest court setting.
6. Use Room 201 or contact the clerk when the document itself is needed.

WCCA costs nothing and opens Ozaukee County court docket information to anyone. It is not, however, a document library. Parties and attorneys with the right account role can open eligible filings through Wisconsin Circuit Court eFiling/eCourts. That permission never turns the documents into public records on WCCA. Municipal matters sit elsewhere, too. A city ordinance case or municipal traffic citation belongs to Mid-Moraine Municipal Court, and federal district and bankruptcy cases fall outside WCCA entirely. Before searching, the public terms must be accepted. No docket search can begin without them. The official WCCA search presents the user agreement and the statewide search entry point.

Acceptance comes first. The public terms screen gates every WCCA docket search, so a case lookup in Ozaukee County cannot start until they are agreed to.

Ozaukee County Dockets Beyond WCCA

Remote results stop at case information. For anything deeper, the Ozaukee County Justice Center is the next stop. Self-help computers in Room 201 show court dates and open-record filed documents that WCCA will not display as images. The same room houses both the Clerk of Circuit Court and the Register in Probate. A docket entry may confirm a motion, order, or judgment exists. When it will not show the contents, Room 201 is where the filing itself can be read. Anyone may inspect an open document at a public terminal and buy a copy through the clerk. Requests also go out by email, phone, fax, mail, or in person. The records line is 262-284-8420; the main clerk lines are 262-284-8409 and 262-238-8409. Fax requests go to 262-284-8491. Mail should go to the Ozaukee County Clerk of Circuit Court. The address is 1201 S. Spring Street, P.O. Box 994, Port Washington, WI 53074. Counter hours run Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The county's official access instructions explain the difference. They contrast WCCA results with the Justice Center computers.

That difference explains a common frustration. A docket hit online may still mean a clerk request or a trip to the courthouse terminal before the actual filing can be read.

Inside a Ozaukee County Court Docket

Think of an Ozaukee County court docket as a running log. Each line marks something that happened in a case: a complaint, a plea, a motion, a hearing, an order, or a judgment. The header portion of a docket carries the case number, the caption, party roles, the case type, the filing date, the assigned branch, and the current status. Money may show up too. Some entries list fines, forfeitures, costs, restitution, or balances when those fields apply. One caution matters, though. A docket line tells you an event was entered, not what the paper actually says or how it works legally. Three circuit branches serve Ozaukee County. A case lookup helps you tell which branch and which judicial officer own a given hearing. Schedules shift. So an old date and a new one can both sit in the chronology at once. Read the newest entry in context. Don't assume the first date you spot is still the live one.

The official WCCA case-detail frame shows how the court organizes its public case data.

That frame keeps summary fields and event text separate from the actual filed documents, which stay with the clerk.

Ozaukee County Court Docket Codes

Case numbers here follow a pattern: four digits for the year, two letters for the case type, then a six-digit sequence. The Ozaukee local rules point to 2016CV000023 as a sample. Those two letters do real work. They steer a docket search toward the right kind of case and stop you from matching records that merely share a year or a close sequence.

CF, CM, CT

Felony, misdemeanor, and criminal traffic circuit cases.

CV, FA, SC

Civil, family, and small claims matters.

PR, JD, ME

Probate, juvenile delinquency, and mental commitment matters.

TR and FO

Traffic and forfeiture classifications used in court forms and docket practice.

Branch

The assigned Ozaukee County Circuit Court branch, numbered 1, 2, or 3.

Wisconsin courts also rely on numeric WCIS classification codes. These sort Ozaukee County cases by type in far more detail than the letter prefixes do. Ozaukee Local Rule 201.2 builds on that system. It requires filed pleadings to carry the case name, the case number, the branch, the WCIS classification, a description of the document, and the relief being requested. Most people searching a docket only need the short public case number. Still, the fuller caption is why the clerk may ask for more than a party name. That extra detail helps in pulling one specific filing from the court record.

Courts That Keep Dockets in Ozaukee County

Ozaukee County runs one trial court with three branches. The Ozaukee County Circuit Court handles criminal, civil, family, small claims, probate, juvenile, traffic, forfeiture, guardianship, and commitment matters. A single Clerk of Circuit Court keeps the records for all three branches. A commissioner hears some assigned matters. But the docket entry stays inside the circuit court record.

Mid-Moraine Municipal Court is the lower-court channel for Cedarburg, Mequon, and Port Washington citations. It covers ordinance, parking, and municipal traffic cases. Its administrative office sits in West Bend, though you appear where the citation or calendar says. A municipal judgment can be appealed. The Washington/Ozaukee County Circuit Court handles that appeal under the published process.

Appeals from Ozaukee go to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District II. From there, review may reach the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Search those through Wisconsin Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Access, or WSCCA. Federal cases belong to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin or its bankruptcy court. Reach them through PACER or the federal clerk.

One Ozaukee County Docket Clerk

Three branches still share one record system. Clerk Connie Mueller holds the office. She is the elected Ozaukee County Clerk of Circuit Court and Register in Probate. Branch 1 sits in Room 246, Branch 2 in Room 228, and Branch 3 in Room 253 at the Justice Center. Room 201 holds the public counter and self-help computers. The clerk can tell you which branch a case is in, though the branch office is the better call once a hearing is on its calendar.

Wisconsin merged its county and circuit trial courts in the 1977 reorganization. That change produced one unified circuit court statewide. So an Ozaukee County docket search turns on case type and assigned branch, not on picking among separate clerks.

How to Find Court Dates and Settings

Start a circuit case lookup in WCCA case information and read the latest scheduled activity. The assigned judge’s county directory entry links an official weekly calendar. Judge Adam M. Gerol sits in Branch 1. Judge Steven M. Cain sits in Branch 2. Judge Sandy A. Williams sits in Branch 3. Terminals in Room 201 also show court dates. Call the clerk or branch if the display seems unclear. Trust the filed notice when two dates look live.

Setting labels mark different stages. An initial appearance or intake is usually the first response date. A pretrial conference precedes trial and may be mandatory. Motion, status, final pretrial, jury status, bench trial, and court trial entries each do distinct work. Ozaukee Local Rule 201.4 also allows a dismissal calendar for certain civil actions at least six months old with no issue joined. That calendar is not a merits trial date.

The official WCCA court calendar supplies the weekly frame behind the Ozaukee judge links.

Treat the calendar as a scheduling aid only. For a changed setting, the case record and direct notice from the court still control.

Ozaukee County Municipal Docket Detour

A city citation often yields no WCCA match. Municipal cases are not circuit cases. Mid-Moraine posts a shared calendar. Browse it by month and year, with past events, date, time block, municipality, and location. It offers no party list, citation index, charge history, or register of outcomes. Match the citation’s date and site to the calendar. Then call Mid-Moraine at 262-334-5700 to confirm case details.

The citation itself tells you where to start. Sheriff, Wisconsin State Patrol, and Department of Natural Resources citations can go to circuit court. Those run through the Ozaukee clerk and WCCA. Cedarburg, Mequon, and Port Washington municipal tickets usually go to Mid-Moraine instead. Parking can follow a city-specific path, and Mequon and Cedarburg both publish parking exceptions. Sending every ticket to one office risks landing in the wrong place.

Public Access to Court Dockets

Wisconsin starts from a strong open-records policy. Wis. Stat. §19.31 presumes public access. Statutory and common-law limits still apply, along with a public-interest balancing test. Wis. Stat. §19.35 gives the basic right to inspect or copy records from the custodian. Wis. Stat. §59.20(3) covers the clerk’s and register in probate’s inspection duty for court books and papers. It applies to court books and papers.

Openness still has limits. Juvenile, adoption, guardianship, mental commitment, and protected family case types may be missing or restricted. Filings must shield Social Security, tax identification, financial-account, driver-license, and passport numbers. A judge decides sealing or redaction, never the clerk alone. On WCCA, a confidential case may show only a limited shell or a sealed-case indicator.

Older cases may predate CCAP. Some never made it into the database. Ask the clerk about retained paper, microfilm, or archived files. You can make a public-record request by email, phone, fax, mail, or at the counter. The county cites a ten-working-day Wisconsin Department of Justice guideline. It responds as soon as practicable.

Ozaukee County Docket or Certified Record

A free WCCA entry can orient you fast. Still, it is not the whole court file. It is also not the official Judgment and Lien Docket. The documents actually filed in a case hold the complaint, motion, order, or judgment itself. Pay for a certified copy when you need the clerk's authentication for an official purpose. One more distinction is worth a pause. A certified transcript made through the court reporter is its own product. It is separate from a calendar entry or a digital audio file.

Probate sets its own published rates for copies and certification. Transcript and audio requests run through form CS-211 and the official court reporter. Write the case number and caption first. Then state the exact document you want, the copy type, and how it should reach you. That detail helps the clerk quote the right cost. It also spares you from paying for an unnecessary name search.

Docket Records at the Clerk's Office

Circuit court records of every kind start in one place. Criminal, civil, family, small claims, probate, guardianship, commitment, juvenile, traffic, forfeiture, and judgment cases all sit with the Ozaukee County Clerk of Circuit Court. The staff can identify an official file and hand you plain or certified copies. Transcript questions get pointed in the right direction too. They cannot hand over police reports, body-camera files, or arrest audio and video. Those materials sit with the agency that responded. Is a case being prosecuted? Discovery requests go through the District Attorney, not the clerk's court-record counter.

Bring the case number, or mail it, whenever you can. A transcript or audio copy needs the case name and number, the proceeding date, your contact details, the format you want, and your signature on CS-211. From there, the court reporter sets production and payment terms.

Ozaukee County Dockets Through Time

Ozaukee County split off from Washington County in 1853. A courthouse opened the following year. A larger three-story courthouse went up across 1901 and 1902, and that building joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 before a later restoration. It stands as county history now. The live public court-record work happens at the Justice Center on South Spring Street. The route to a docket has changed too. Wisconsin built WCCA in 1999 because demand for electronic circuit access had grown. Circuit eFiling rolled out by case type starting in 2017 and hit its final case type in 2019. Recent clerk goals for Ozaukee keep pushing document imaging, self-service, video use, and eFiling access. These tools make a docket easier to find. Even so, the terminal in Room 201 and the file held at the clerk's counter still count, because remote WCCA shows no public document images.

Missing Ozaukee County Docket Results

A blank result means test the route, not that no case exists. Begin with a plain first-and-last-name search. Check that Ozaukee County is the county selected. Then try the known case number with the correct two-letter code. Ask whether the matter is municipal, appellate, federal, sealed, confidential, simply old, or filed under a different name. Each answer points to a different official system or custodian. For a municipal citation, try Mid-Moraine first. Work through its calendar, payment path, phone line, or a written request. An appeal belongs on WSCCA. Federal district and bankruptcy dockets live on PACER. You can view it free at the relevant federal clerk's public terminal. Is a circuit record old or missing? Call the Ozaukee records desk or file the request through county channels. And sealed or confidential content stays sealed, even after a public search comes up empty.

Ozaukee County Court Dockets by City

Three incorporated cities make up Ozaukee County: Mequon, Port Washington, and Cedarburg. All three send local ordinance and traffic citations to Mid-Moraine Municipal Court. But each city sets its own appearance site and local instructions. Location matters here. Administration and correspondence run through the West Bend office. Anyone who must appear should follow the municipality and venue printed on the citation. Confirm it on the shared calendar.

By 2020 Census population, Mequon ranks first, then Port Washington, then Cedarburg. The city cards below cover exactly those three incorporated cities documented by Ozaukee County. No unincorporated place is dressed up as a city court.

Map and Directions to the Ozaukee County Justice Center

Circuit criminal, civil, family, small claims, probate, guardianship, commitment, juvenile, traffic, and forfeiture files are kept at the Ozaukee County Justice Center in Port Washington. The Clerk of Circuit Court and the public self-help terminals sit in Room 201, while the three circuit branches keep separate rooms: Branch 1 in Room 246, Branch 2 in Room 228, and Branch 3 in Room 253. The historic 1901 courthouse nearby is a civic landmark, but today's docket work happens at the Justice Center.

Parking is in county Lot No. 4 at the Justice Center address. Security screening is expected at building entry, and the county advises confirming current accessibility or recording accommodations with the clerk before a visit.