Pull St. Tammany Parish arrest records from two distinct systems: the St. Tammany Parish Clerk of Court, which holds criminal docket filings at the 22nd Judicial District Court, and the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, which maintains booking records at the parish jail. The Clerk’s office operates Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and is located at the St. Tammany Parish Courthouse in Covington. Free parking is available in the multi-level garage and adjacent lot on Jefferson Street across from the St. Tammany Justice Center. Louisiana has no single statewide trial-court portal; your records check starts here, at the parish level.
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A St. Tammany Parish records check covers cases filed in this parish’s courts — it won’t surface federal court cases, records from other Louisiana parishes, or arrests in other states. A nationwide third-party search may help fill gaps that local portals often leave, including name variants, prior addresses, and records predating online court systems. The preliminary scan is free; a full report requires creating an account.
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How to look up arrest records in St. Tammany Parish
“Public records shall be open to inspection, copying, or reproduction by any person,” reads Louisiana’s foundational access statute — and that principle governs every pathway below. St. Tammany Parish arrest records split across four distinct record types, each held by a different office: the criminal docket (filed at the 22nd Judicial District Court through the Clerk of Court), the booking record (held by the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office), the charge sheet (generated at arrest and held by the arresting agency), and the disposition record (updated by the Clerk as the case moves through court).
Clerk of Court — criminal docket and dispositions. The St. Tammany Parish Clerk of Court maintains felony and misdemeanor dockets for the 22nd Judicial District. The Clerk’s office is open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. An online case search portal is not confirmed for St. Tammany Parish — call the Clerk to confirm current remote-access options before driving to the courthouse. In-person requests are accepted at the St. Tammany Parish Courthouse in Covington; payment by money order, debit card, or credit card is accepted. New tickets and citations can take time to appear in the system after submission, so allow adequate lead time if you need a recent entry.
Sheriff’s Office — booking records and charge sheets. The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office runs the parish jail and generates the booking record at the time of arrest. Sheriff’s Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The Sheriff’s Office does not offer weekend or after-hours records services. Call the Sheriff’s Office to confirm the records-request process and any applicable fee before visiting. The Sun Police Department, reachable at (225) 922-1691, is one of several municipal agencies in the parish whose arrest records feed into the broader St. Tammany records ecosystem.
Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections — state prison records. If the person you’re researching was sentenced to a state facility rather than held at the parish jail, the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections maintains the inmate lookup at Louisiana DOC Inmate Information. This covers individuals serving sentences in state custody, not those held pre-trial at the St. Tammany Parish jail.
Louisiana State Police — background checks. For a certified criminal history check that aggregates statewide arrest data, the Louisiana State Police offers background check services. This is the appropriate channel when you need a comprehensive statewide record rather than a single-parish docket search.
Are St. Tammany Parish arrest records public?
Unless a specific exception applies, arrest records in St. Tammany Parish are open to the public under Louisiana law. La. R.S. 44:1 establishes the default rule: public records are open to inspection, copying, or reproduction by any person, and the burden falls on the custodian — not the requester — to justify any withholding.
Sealed and expunged records are the primary exception. Once a court grants an expungement under Louisiana’s criminal procedure code, the record is removed from public view. Law enforcement retains access, but the general public — and most background-check databases — does not. The Clerk of Court will not confirm the existence of an expunged record in response to a public-records request.
Juvenile records carry a separate protection. Arrests and adjudications involving persons under 17 at the time of the offense are not public records in Louisiana. The juvenile court system operates under confidentiality rules that override the general open-records framework.
Victim-protection redactions apply in certain cases. Records involving domestic violence, sexual assault, or human trafficking may have victim-identifying information redacted before release, even when the underlying arrest record is otherwise public. The Clerk or Sheriff’s Office will produce the record with those fields removed rather than withholding the document entirely.
Pending prosecutorial decisions can also affect what you see. An arrest that has not yet been accepted for prosecution — where the district attorney has neither filed charges nor formally refused — may appear in booking records but not yet in the court docket. The two systems update on different timelines, so a name that appears in the Sheriff’s booking log may not yet show a case number in the Clerk’s system.
What’s in a St. Tammany Parish arrest record?
“The record of each criminal case shall contain the name of the defendant, the offense charged, and all proceedings had therein” — that statutory baseline describes the court-side docket, but the full picture of what you’ll actually see depends on which system you’re pulling from. Booking records and court dockets are separate documents, maintained by separate offices, and they show different fields.
The booking record — held by the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office — contains the booking date and time, the defendant’s name and date of birth, the arresting agency, the charges as written at the time of arrest (which may differ from what the DA later files), and the bond amount set at first appearance. Booking photos are generated at the parish jail; for the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office mugshot release policy, call the Sheriff’s Office directly — the policy isn’t posted in confirmed online documentation.
The criminal docket — held by the St. Tammany Parish Clerk of Court at the St. Tammany Parish Courthouse — contains the case number, the formal charge or bill of information filed by the district attorney, all hearing dates (arraignment, pre-trial motions, trial), sentencing dates if the case reached that stage, and the attorney of record for both prosecution and defense. Probation terms, when imposed, appear in the sentencing entry on the docket. Disposition entries — guilty plea, verdict, dismissal, nolle prosequi — are recorded here as the case resolves.
A key practical difference: the docket is updated by the Clerk as court events occur, while the booking record reflects the moment of arrest. A case dismissed at arraignment will show a dismissal entry on the docket but the original booking record remains in the Sheriff’s system. Both records are public under the same open-records framework, but you may need to request them separately from two different offices.
Federal charges filed in the Eastern District of Louisiana do not appear in the St. Tammany Parish Clerk’s system at all — those records live with the federal district court clerk in New Orleans.
How to expunge an arrest record in St. Tammany Parish
Petitioning to seal an arrest record in St. Tammany Parish is a routine legal procedure governed by La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 971, and the eligibility rules depend on how the underlying case resolved — not on any moral judgment about the arrest itself.
Arrests that ended without conviction — dismissed, acquitted, or refused by the district attorney — are generally eligible for expungement without a waiting period. You do not need to wait years after a dismissal. The petition can be filed as soon as the case is closed. This is the most straightforward path and the one most people pursue after a charge that didn’t result in a conviction.
DWI cases resolved through pretrial diversion carry a hard five-year wait from the date of arrest before the expungement petition can be filed, even though no conviction resulted. This is the one non-conviction category with a mandatory elapsed-time requirement under Louisiana law.
Misdemeanor convictions become eligible five years after completion of the sentence, probation, or parole — whichever ends last. The five-year clock runs from the end of supervision, not from the conviction date itself.
Felony convictions require a ten-year wait after completion of sentence, probation, or parole. Not all felony convictions are eligible; the statute sets out specific offense categories that cannot be expunged regardless of elapsed time. Confirm eligibility for a specific felony charge by reviewing the current text of the statute or consulting a licensed attorney.
First marijuana-possession convictions have a shortened path: eligibility begins ninety days after completion of the sentence.
Filing the petition. The Petition to Expunge is filed at the 22nd Judicial District Court through the St. Tammany Parish Clerk of Court. The petition must be served on the district attorney and the arresting agency, both of which have an opportunity to object. Call the Clerk to confirm the current filing fee — the fee is not confirmed in published online documentation. An indigency waiver is available if you cannot afford the filing fee; ask the Clerk for the in forma pauperis form.
Self-petition vs. attorney-assisted. Louisiana law does not require an attorney to file an expungement petition. Many people file pro se, particularly for straightforward non-conviction cases. For felony convictions or cases with contested facts, attorney assistance reduces the risk of procedural errors that can delay or defeat the petition. The Louisiana State Bar Association attorney finder and the Louisiana Public Defender are both resources if you need legal help.
What remains accessible after sealing. An expunged record is removed from public view. Law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and certain licensing boards retain access. The record does not disappear entirely — it is sealed from public inspection, not destroyed.
| Resource | What it confirms | What it cannot confirm | Next step |
|---|---|---|---|
| St. Tammany Parish Clerk of Court | Criminal docket entries, case numbers, hearing dates, sentencing dates, dispositions, attorney of record | Booking photos, bond amounts, pre-charge arrests not yet filed | Visit in person 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Mon–Fri; call to confirm online access and current fee |
| St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office | Booking records, charges at time of arrest, bond set at first appearance | Court dispositions, post-arraignment case history | Call the Sheriff’s Office Mon–Fri, 8:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m. to confirm records-request process |
| Louisiana DOC Inmate Information | State prison custody status, sentence information for DOC-held individuals | Parish jail bookings, pre-trial detainees, cases not resulting in state sentence | Search by name at the DOC inmate lookup |
| Louisiana State Police | Certified statewide criminal history; aggregates arrest data across parishes | Federal cases; records expunged from state systems | Submit a background check request through Louisiana State Police |
| Sun Police Department | Arrest records generated by Sun PD for incidents in that jurisdiction | Cases handled by other St. Tammany agencies or the Sheriff | Call (225) 922-1691 during weekday business hours |
| Nationwide third-party search | May surface records from other states, federal cases, prior-name variants | Real-time St. Tammany docket updates; expunged records | Use as a supplement after checking local sources; preliminary scan is free |
- Louisiana Laws Search — Louisiana State Legislature — full text of La. R.S. 44:1 (Public Records Law) and La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 971 (Expungement of Criminal Records).
- Louisiana Attorney General’s Opinions — interpretive guidance on public-records access obligations.
- the state prison inmate locator — state prison custody lookup.
- Louisiana State Police — statewide background check and criminal history services.
- the state bar lawyer directory — attorney locator for expungement and criminal-records assistance.
- Louisiana Public Defender — public defender locator for those who qualify.
- Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement — LA VINE Rosters — LAVNS (Louisiana Automated Victim Notification System) registration information.
- Louisiana Office of the Attorney General — state-level guidance on victim rights and notification services.
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Frequently asked questions about St. Tammany Parish arrest records
How do I visit the St. Tammany Parish Clerk of Court to get an arrest record in person?
Go to the St. Tammany Parish Courthouse in Covington during Clerk of Court hours: Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Free parking is in the multi-level garage and adjacent lot on Jefferson Street across from the St. Tammany Justice Center. Bring the full name and approximate date of the case you’re researching. The Clerk can pull criminal docket entries, case numbers, hearing dates, and dispositions. Payment by money order, debit card, or credit card is accepted for copies. If you’re checking a recent citation or ticket, note that new entries can take time to appear in the system after submission — call ahead to confirm the record is accessible before making the trip.
How do I get a St. Tammany Parish arrest record expunged or sealed?
File a Petition to Expunge at the 22nd Judicial District Court through the St. Tammany Parish Clerk of Court. The governing statute is La. Code Crim. Proc. art. 971. Arrests that ended in dismissal or acquittal can generally be petitioned immediately — no waiting period applies. Misdemeanor convictions require five years after completing the sentence or supervision. Felony convictions require ten years. A first marijuana-possession conviction qualifies after ninety days. Call the Clerk to confirm the current filing fee; an indigency waiver is available if you cannot afford it. You can file without an attorney, though legal help reduces the risk of procedural errors. After a successful expungement, the record is sealed from public view — law enforcement retains access, but the general public does not.
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