Stearns County Court Administration
Court Administrator: Tim Roberts
Fines and other payments should be sent to the address shown on our contact page. We also have a 24-hour payment drop box available outside the Courts Facility Building at 815 Courthouse Square. Our normal office hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Some court forms are available online through our Court Forms page. If you're looking for general legal information about various topics in Minnesota, you might try browsing the Law Help MN or the Minnesota Attorney General web sites. If you're looking for information about drivers' licenses, registration, and other vehicle-related topics, you might try the Stearns County Licensing Center page, or the Minnesota Department of Public Safety's driver information site.
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Please note: No cell phones are allowed inside the courthouse or courts facility buildings. If you bring your cell phone with you, you will be asked to leave it at the door in a storage area (which is unsecured), or return to your vehicle to leave it there. |
Stearns County District Court is one of ten courts in Minnesota's 7th Judicial District. Stearns is one of the larger courts in the state, serving an area of about 1,400 square miles and a population of about 130,000. The court is housed in two buildings in downtown St. Cloud. The Stearns County Law Library is also housed in the historic courthouse.
In the past few years the court's caseload has grown to about 40,000 annual filings (including traffic tickets). Seven judges are "chambered" or home-based in Stearns County, and a number of other judges are assigned to Stearns County on a rotating or temporary basis. Hearings and conferences are also held at the Stearns County Courthouse for the Minnesota Court of Appeals, federal Bankruptcy Court, Social Security Administration, worker's compensation, child support, and a number of other agencies. It is not unusual to have nine or ten courtrooms in frequent use here in St. Cloud.
State Management
Minnesota is gradually moving to a state-funded and administered trial court system. So far, the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth judicial districts are state-funded, including the court in Stearns County. The remaining four judicial districts will transfer to state funding over the next couple years.
Because Stearns County's court is now state-funded, the court follows state holidays, which do not always match county holidays.
Court Structure
Although we still identify courts by county and use county boundaries, Minnesota has a cleanly unified trial court system, without the divisions or layers found in many other states. For example, we have no municipal or local courts, and judges are all "general jurisdiction" and could theoretically, for example, handle a traffic ticket in the morning and a murder trial in the afternoon. Minnesota's District Courts handle civil, criminal, conciliation (small claims), probate, juvenile, traffic, family, child support, and child protection cases.
What Does Court Administration Do?
Court Administration staff conducts and manages the daily administrative, technical, and support operations of the court and the processing of cases.
What does that mean? Well, for example...
- we answer hundreds of telephone calls and in-person questions per day, give out hundreds of court forms to a constant stream of visitors to court, and keep track of what often seems like a blizzard of new laws and procedures every year.
- we process a huge stream of paperwork, court filings, letters, motions, and notices (for example, we send out about 100,000 pieces of mail per year!).
- we organize, retrieve, store, preserve, and copy the files, paperwork, and records of court proceedings, for some cases stretching back many decades (we make about 1.2 million photocopies per year).
- we set cases on the court's calendars, keep the workflow organized, help the judges with whatever they need, arrange for foreign language interpreters, call jurors for jury duty, issue warrants, manage fine collections and court finances, post calendars, and generally keep the cases organized and moving.
Court administration is a very fast-paced and complex job, with a wide variety of functions and responsibilities.