Search the Knox County Court Docket

Searching the Knox County Court Docket

Start any Criminal Court Clerk docket search here. Knox County posts this free daily docket for criminal, traffic, and county ordinance settings.

That official page links to calendars, records, contacts, and payments in one place. It does not cover every Knox court. Match your search to the court named on your notice, citation, filing stamp, or case number.

1. Identify the court and clerk.
2. Open that court's free docket or calendar.
3. Enter the date, name, division, or docket number offered.
4. Read the setting as calendar metadata.
5. Contact the clerk for documents or certification.

Each court has its own tool. The criminal search covers Criminal Court and General Sessions Criminal settings. The Circuit calendar, in turn, handles general civil matters. For limited civil cases, check the weekly Civil Sessions list. For domestic relations, use the separate Fourth Circuit search. Chancery and Probate dockets usually call for a counter visit or a written request.

Knox Daily Search Fields

The official criminal daily docket form asks for a beginning and ending date. First name, last name, and division are optional fields.

You can run a date-and-division search with no party name at all. That works well for spotting a future setting, but it will not give you a complete case history.

Each row lists the defendant or violator label, division, charge, hearing type, court date, IDN, and docket. Fifteen rows fit on a page. Remember, a missing result does not prove the case does not exist.

Inside a Knox County Court Docket

Think of a Knox County court docket as a chronological event record. Or think of it as a calendar of settings. It is not the case file. Free calendars carry only the fields you need to spot a matter and its next event. Filed motions, exhibits, payment detail, judgments, and certified copies may sit somewhere else entirely.

A setting alone proves nothing. It is not a conviction, judgment, dismissal, or sentence. When a web copy conflicts with the official minutes, Rule Docket, or clerk file, the official record controls.

Knox Criminal Court Divisions

The county's criminal court division page lists three Criminal Court divisions.

That division structure makes court assignment a strong filter for any docket search. General Sessions adds misdemeanor, DUI, felony, traffic, and bonded-arraignment work on top of the three Criminal Court divisions. First Sessions handles misdemeanors, Second Sessions DUI, and Third Sessions felony matters including preliminary hearings. Fourth Sessions covers traffic and bonded arraignment, while Fifth Sessions is civil. Keep the meaning straight. A preliminary hearing is not a felony trial. An arraignment is not a disposition. Use the division label to locate the event. Then use the docket number to request the official file.

IDN

An internal cross-reference shown in criminal results.

PTC

A civil pre-trial conference setting.

VOP

A probation-violation event, not a finding by itself.

Courts That Keep Dockets in Knox County

Knox County court records are spread across multiple clerks. Several courts share the downtown complex, yet their databases and duties stay separate.

Tennessee Public Case History covers appeals only, and PACER covers federal cases, so neither replaces a Knox trial-court docket.

Fourth Circuit Docket Search

The Fourth Circuit daily search is distinct from both criminal and general civil calendars.

The Fourth Circuit search offers lead-defendant and lead-plaintiff fields, a division choice, and required dates. Results show division, lead parties, case type, event, court date, and docket. This court handles divorce, custody, and orders of protection. Its motion calendar requires a notice of hearing plus notice to the judicial assistant, and a requested motion may not be heard if that step is missed. Even when a setting is public, confidential domestic-relations data may be restricted. For a time-sensitive date or access question, call the Fourth Circuit Clerk at 865-215-2404. The clerk can explain the process but cannot give legal advice.

Note: Use the Fourth Circuit route only when the case belongs to that domestic-relations court.

How to Find Court Dates and Settings

A Knox County court date can surface in a daily docket. It may also appear in a weekly reproduction, motion calendar, booking schedule, municipal schedule, or a clerk's official record. These sources are not interchangeable. Circuit data reflects the prior business day. Civil Sessions posts a Friday reproduction. A booking date is not always the court date. Check the docket close to the event. For criminal matters call 865-215-2375, and use 865-215-2376 for citations. Circuit uses 865-215-2400, Civil Sessions 865-215-2518, Fourth Circuit 865-215-2404, Chancery 865-215-2555, and Probate 865-215-2389. The Knox County court dates page explains settings and resets in more detail. Closures vary too. Fourth Circuit follows Knox County office closure decisions. General Sessions and Knoxville City Court use their own stated policies. A canceled hearing must be reset through the responsible court.

Knox Courthouse Access

The official coming-to-court information describes entry, parking, transit, security, and accessibility.

The City-County Building sits at 400 Main Street, Knoxville, TN 37902. Entrances at Main Street and Hill Street L1 run metal detectors, and weapons are prohibited. Free trolley service and nearby parking can ease a counter visit. ADA spaces sit at the Hill Avenue entrance and near the Old Courthouse. For ADA coordination, call 865-215-4437. Bring the court name and docket number. Include the date span and a precise description of the record you want. Tennessee identification may be needed for some public-record requests. A public terminal, lobby display, help-center kiosk, or Chancery vault supports supervised access. None is a countywide docket database.

Public Access to Court Dockets

Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 34 opens court public records unless a statute, rule, order, or recognized exception applies. Knox County's working request route is its Form A. Court access rules and the Tennessee Public Records Act work together. Neither, though, requires a clerk to build a new report.

Juvenile files are generally private. Adoption records and court-sealed filings are not ordinary public records either. When protected data can be removed, a clerk may provide a redacted copy.

Free Calendar or Paid Documents

Knox County's free calendars answer the basics. They tell you when a matter is set and where it will be heard. Subscription services are a different product. For a fee, they may offer scanned filings. Mixing the two up leads people to think a case document is free when it is not.

KnoxCircuit Records sells Circuit filings back to April 14, 2015. Civil Sessions filings go back to October 4, 2017. For Criminal and Fourth Circuit online access, the starting date is November 1, 2017.

The Criminal Clerk's daily docket and app history covers the county's online calendar access. It shows how that access grew over time.

Convenience improved, but Knox County still has no unified archive. Some filings never get scanned. Sealed content stays off limits no matter what you pay.

So split the job. A free docket search tells you the event and the case number. That is usually all a layperson needs. When you want pleadings, orders, minutes, or judgments, go to the right document portal or the clerk itself. Ask first about account requirements, page fees, subscriptions, redaction charges, or certification fees. Do that before you place an order.

Docket Records at the Clerk's Office

Need the right counter? The criminal clerk contact page lists two of them: the Criminal Clerk sits in Suite 149, and General Sessions Criminal operates out of Suite M84.

Three elected offices hold these records. Mike Hammond's office keeps the Criminal, General Sessions Criminal, and Fourth Circuit dockets, while Charlie D. Susano III handles Circuit and Civil Sessions. Houston S. Havasy serves as Chancery Clerk and Master.

When a portal fails, the old routes still work: visit in person, call, mail, fax, or send a narrowly written public-records request. Circuit and Civil Sessions offer several paper and fax options but will not take pleadings by email. Chancery routes its records requests through a coordinator.

Knox Copies and Certification

The Criminal Clerk copy page posts a 50-cent per-page rate plus a $5 certification fee.

Electronic copies cost nothing unless the volume is large. A certified copy is different from inspection or a plain printout. The clerk authenticates it.

Form A gives a Tennessee resident three choices. You can choose inspection, a copy or duplicate, and a delivery method such as pickup, mail, or electronic delivery. Inspection is generally free unless redaction is required. The clerk may estimate copy, delivery, and redaction costs. Describe the court, docket number, dates, and the exact record you want. Knox County need not compile every case for you. It need not build a new index either.

The clerk's 2026 excess-fee notice adds public-finance context to how court fees are administered.

That notice should not be used to infer any person's balance or case status.

Knox Court Access Changes

Court technology in Knox County keeps shifting. Tennessee is modernizing through TnCIS. Yet no single public Knox trial-court e-filing or search portal exists. Filing authority stays local. An appellate account or a PACER login cannot file a Knox trial pleading.

The Criminal Clerk's staff training notice shows the kind of operational work that can affect office availability.

Access can shift while the record stays put. Training days, weather, maintenance, or a temporary closure may change how you reach a Knox County docket. None of it alters a single entry. When you save anything, tag the source type. Was it a calendar, docket metadata, or a filed document? It might also be a request route or a record from outside this jurisdiction. Write down the date you viewed it, too. That habit keeps a live docket distinct from an older copy. For anything official, go back to the clerk or court that maintains the original record.

Some nearby systems get mistaken for this one. Tennessee Public Case History covers appellate courts only. It cannot stand in for a Knox County trial docket. Federal civil and criminal matters live in PACER and Eastern District CM/ECF. Bankruptcy runs through a separate Knoxville Division route. Those platforms may charge for documents. Sealed material may stay hidden there as well. A case that moves up on appeal never merges the databases. The same goes for federal court. Keep the case number tied to each court level.

Older records can take you to a different medium entirely. Chancery holds recent and pending files in its on-site vault. Dated material may sit with Knox County Archives or on microfilm instead. Before you travel or mail a copy payment, ask which office, date range, and format apply.

Knox County Court Dockets by City

Exactly two incorporated municipalities exist in Knox County: Knoxville and Farragut. Neither city's matters appear in a single countywide portal. Knoxville City Court runs municipal and traffic cases through its own court and citation tools. Farragut Municipal Court covers town ordinance and automated-traffic-enforcement cases. The court also posts a court-date schedule.

A municipal citation may later tie into a county court, but your first lookup should follow the court printed on the citation. Neighborhoods and census-designed places do not get their own city pages. County, municipal, state appellate, and federal systems stay separate jurisdictions.

Map and Directions to the Knox County City-County Building

Knox County's main courthouse hub is the City-County Building at 400 Main Street in downtown Knoxville, where several separate clerks keep their own dockets by suite: Circuit Court Clerk in Suite M30, Criminal Court Clerk in Suite 149, Chancery Clerk and Master in Suite 125, and Probate in Suite 352. Civil Sessions, the small-claims and pro se forum, sits next door at the Old Knox County Courthouse, Room 318, with its Help Center kiosk on the third floor. Bring the case type shown on the citation or notice, since the right desk depends on which court is named.

Courtroom security includes metal detectors at the Main Street and Hill Street L1 entrances, and weapons are prohibited inside. ADA-reserved parking is at the Hill Avenue entrance and near the Old Courthouse; call 865-215-4437 to coordinate accessibility needs. A free downtown trolley also serves the building. Circuit and Civil Sessions do not accept filings by email, so bring paper documents or use mail, express delivery, fax, or an in-person visit.