Northumberland County Court Dockets
A docket is the court's chronological list of filings, hearings, orders, notices, and case events. In Northumberland County, a docket may be a Court of Common Pleas docket for county-level civil, criminal, family, divorce, and Orphans' Court work, or it may be a Magisterial District Court docket for traffic citations, landlord-tenant cases, summary offenses, small civil claims, preliminary arraignments, and preliminary hearings. The docket tells a reader what happened and when it happened.
A docket is not the same as the full record. A Northumberland County court docket might list a motion, order, plea, disposition, continuance, or hearing date, while the full file contains the actual motion, order, proof of service, exhibits, certified decree, or sentencing paperwork. The docket is often free online. The full case file may require a counter request, a copy fee, or a certified-copy request through the Prothonotary, Clerk of Courts, Register and Recorder, or the correct Magisterial District Court.
- Docket sheet
- The public summary view of a case.
- Docket entry
- One dated line in the case history.
- Disposition
- The outcome of a case, charge, or claim.
- Continuance
- A postponement of a scheduled hearing or event.
Find Northumberland County Court Dockets Online
Northumberland County court docket searching starts with UJS Case Search. The portal is a free statewide public service for Pennsylvania docket sheets. It covers Courts of Common Pleas and Magisterial District Courts, so it is the main online channel for Northumberland County Common Pleas dockets and MDJ dockets. UJS warns that recent entries made in filing offices may not appear right away, so a current hearing or new filing should be verified with the office if timing matters.
- Open UJS Case Search and choose the matching court category.
- Use Court of Common Pleas for county-level cases or Magisterial District Courts for MDJ matters.
- Enter the docket number, participant name, organization name, attorney, citation number, or other search field shown.
- Select Northumberland when the county filter is available.
- Open the matching docket sheet and review the entries, status, and next scheduled events.
The UJS Case Search portal is the online doorway for Northumberland County court dockets:
When a docket is absent or delayed, the fallback is the court office that created the docket, not a separate county search tool.
Northumberland County Docket Entry Fields
A public docket sheet normally gives enough data to identify the case and decide whether a copy request is needed. Criminal and traffic dockets can show OTN, complaint number, citation number, charges, grading, offense date, bail, preliminary hearing results, pleas, sentence information, fines, costs, and restitution when public. Civil dockets often focus on parties, filing date, claims, motions, orders, judgments, and appeal events. Probate dockets can show estate number, petition filings, letters, inventories, accounts, and orders, though restricted topics may be masked.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Docket number | The court's unique tracking number, such as a Common Pleas or MDJ format. |
| Court name | The court level and county attached to the case. |
| Case caption | The parties, Commonwealth, defendant, or organization names. |
| Case type | Civil, criminal, traffic, family, landlord-tenant, summary, probate, or related category. |
| Docket entry | A dated filing, event, hearing, notice, order, or court action. |
| Judge or MDJ | The judge or Magisterial District Judge connected to the case. |
| Status and disposition | Whether the case is open, closed, decided, dismissed, held for court, or otherwise resolved. |
| Financial information | Fines, costs, restitution, or payment status when public and applicable. |
Northumberland County Courts With Dockets
Northumberland County's primary trial court is the Court of Common Pleas at the courthouse in Sunbury. It handles felony criminal cases after preliminary proceedings, major civil cases, family and divorce matters, custody, protection from abuse, Orphans' Court probate work, and appeals from lower courts. The lower courts are four Magisterial District Courts in Mount Carmel, Milton, Shamokin, and Sunbury. They produce dockets for the local matters they handle before a case reaches Common Pleas or without a Common Pleas case at all.
The UJS Northumberland County court page lists statewide court resources for the county:
That county page is useful when a reader needs to confirm the official court system before using docket sheets, payment tools, forms, or public-record links.
| Court | Address | Phone | Docket scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| Court of Common Pleas | 201 Market Street, Sunbury | 570-988-4167 | County-level civil, criminal, family, probate, and appeals. |
| MDJ William Cole, 08-2-01 | 150 S Market Street, Mount Carmel | 570-339-2140 | Mount Carmel area traffic, summary, landlord-tenant, small claims, and preliminary criminal matters. |
| MDJ Michael Diehl, 08-3-02 | 45 Locust Street, Milton | 570-742-7446 | Milton area MDJ docket matters. |
| MDJ William Zalinski, 08-3-03 | 2 E Arch Street, Shamokin | 570-644-0736 | Shamokin area MDJ docket matters. |
| MDJ Racheal Wiest-Benner, 08-3-04 | 399 Stadium Drive, Sunbury | 570-988-4485 | Sunbury area MDJ docket matters. |
Northumberland County Dockets vs Full Records
A Northumberland County court docket is best for tracking case progress. It helps confirm whether a case exists, whether a hearing has been scheduled, what filings have been entered, whether a case was held for court, and whether a disposition has been posted. A full record is needed when the actual pleading, decree, sentencing order, certified judgment, or filing image must be reviewed. The correct office depends on the type of case.
| Docket | Full Case Record | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | Chronological list of entries. | Documents, orders, filings, and certified copies. |
| Access | Often online through UJS Case Search. | Usually through the record custodian's office. |
| Best use | Check status, events, disposition, and court dates. | Legal filing review, certified proof, and document-level detail. |
| Limits | Can lag behind recent filings. | May include restricted or redacted material. |
The statewide Clerks of Courts list helps identify criminal record offices:
For criminal Common Pleas docket copies, the Clerk of Courts function is the local record path after online review.
Reading Northumberland County Court Dockets
Docket entries should be read in order. A criminal case may start at the MDJ level with a complaint, summons or arrest warrant, preliminary arraignment, bail setting, and preliminary hearing. If the Commonwealth makes a prima facie showing, the case is held for court and moves to the Court of Common Pleas. A Common Pleas criminal docket can then show formal information, arraignment, pretrial motions, plea, trial, verdict, sentence, costs, restitution, probation terms, appeal activity, or expungement orders.
Civil dockets often turn on filings and service. Look for the complaint, answer, motions, orders, judgment, satisfaction, or appeal event. Family and PFA dockets may show a narrow public summary while protecting addresses, minor details, financial identifiers, or abuse-related content. If a docket line is unclear, the safest reading is to use the event date and title to ask the filing office for the document by docket number.
Note: UJS docket sheets are public case summaries and are not certified criminal-history reports from Pennsylvania State Police.
Northumberland County Docket Access Limits
Public docket access is limited by the Case Records Public Access Policy of the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania, juvenile confidentiality law, sealing orders, expungement orders, and confidential-information rules. Juvenile matters are restricted under 42 Pa.C.S. Section 6307. Sealed or expunged criminal cases may be removed from ordinary public search. Adoption, incapacity, mental health, guardianship, minor, PFA, and sensitive victim information may be hidden or redacted even when a docket stub remains visible.
For administrative records rather than case dockets, Northumberland County publishes an open-records contact list by department. For court case dockets, use UJS policy and the court office that holds the case. That split prevents a common mistake: sending a court case-file request through a general open-records route when the docket is governed by judicial access policy.