Access St. Clair County Circuit Clerk

St. Clair County Circuit Clerk

Kathryn Burke serves as the St. Clair County Circuit Clerk and Absentee Election Manager. The county Circuit Clerk directory lists public counters in Ashville and Pell City. The office is not a general county clerk and does not keep every public record made in St. Clair County. It maintains the trial-court files of Circuit and District Courts. Probate, recorded marriage certificates, jail bookings, and sheriff reports follow separate channels.

The official county listing captured below is useful because it places both clerk locations in one source. Call first when the correct branch is uncertain, especially for an older file, a certified copy, or a court notice tied to one city.

The two counters serve the same county court system, but a file or hearing may be associated with a specific location.

St. Clair Circuit Clerk Duties

The St. Clair County Courthouse is one public location for Kathryn Burke's court-record work. Sheriff Billy Murray is the separate custodian for jail, booking, and sheriff records.

The official Circuit Clerk duties page calls the clerk the courts' record keeper and business manager. The clerk receives pleadings, maintains case files, collects and disburses court funds, prepares subpoenas, issues notices for trials and hearings, and manages jury operations. Those tasks create much of the case action history later seen in an online report.

The source ties the office directly to both Circuit Court and District Court proceedings in St. Clair County.

• Maintain civil, criminal, domestic, child support, traffic, juvenile, and warrant court divisions.
• File pleadings and preserve court actions, rulings, settings, and case status.
• Collect fines, fees, costs, and other court funds, then account for disbursement.
• Prepare subpoenas and send notices for hearings, trials, and other settings.
• Support juror summonses and the local jury process.

Record seekers should use the office that holds the record. Estate and recorded marriage-certificate work belongs to the Probate Office, while incident reports and booking records belong to the Sheriff's Office. This division prevents a request from being delayed at the wrong counter.

The clerk's divisions also explain why one person may encounter several related records. An arrest begins with a law-enforcement booking record. A prosecutor may then file or pursue charges, and the Circuit Clerk's criminal division preserves the court case. A warrant can appear in a court record, while the Sheriff's Office may hold service or custody information. The Circuit Clerk record is the source for pleas, settings, rulings, disposition, sentence, and court costs after a case opens.

Request Certified St. Clair Copies

A certified copy bears the clerk's official certification and may be needed when a court order, judgment, or decree must be presented to another agency or tribunal. The researched St. Clair County sources do not publish a general copy-request form or a fixed certification price. Direct clerk contact is therefore essential. Calling also lets staff confirm whether the document is imaged, whether the file is public, and which office can produce it.

1. Identify the court, case number, party names, and exact document, such as a judgment, order, decree, or case action summary.
2. Call the Ashville or Pell City Circuit Clerk. Confirm that the file is held there and ask whether it is public and available for certification.
3. Ask for the current copy and certification cost, accepted payment method, and whether the request may be handled by mail.
4. Submit the details and payment as the clerk directs. Check names, page count, case number, and certification before leaving or relying on the copy.

Online Alacourt document images are not automatically the same as a clerk-certified copy. If a certified document is required, state that need at the start.

A divorce provides a common example. ADPH can issue an Alabama divorce certificate for divorces from 1950 forward, but the decree, pleadings, custody and support orders, and docket remain in the Circuit Court file. A request for the court's decree belongs with the St. Clair County Circuit Clerk when the divorce was granted in St. Clair County. Errors in the certificate must also be corrected through the Alabama circuit court that granted the divorce.

St. Clair Clerk Request Details

No standard general request form was located for St. Clair County court copies. The following inventory reflects the details needed to identify a file and let the Circuit Clerk quote the work. A case number is the strongest identifier. When it is not known, provide accurate party names and enough context to separate the case from people with similar names.

St. Clair Circuit Clerk Fees

The official civil fee sheet publishes filing costs, not a general certified-copy schedule. It groups civil filings by the amount in dispute and shows when sheriff service changes the total. The image below is a useful visual check against relying on an old or generic Alabama fee list.

Ask the clerk to confirm the current total, service needs, and payment method before filing.

St. Clair Clerk Services

The St. Clair County court site links users to Alabama eForms, traffic payment resources, e-notice registration, fee information, jury instructions, and garnishment notices. The Circuit Clerk cannot give legal advice, choose a form for a litigant, or predict what a judge will do. A self-represented user should read official form instructions and ask only procedural questions about filing, copies, payment, and scheduling.

• AlaFile supports Alabama trial-court e-filing and registered account workflows.
• Alacourt ACCESS supplies paid name and case-number searches for state trial-court records.
• St. Clair Traffic Court gives District Court ticket payment and appearance instructions.
• Jury information explains reporting, security, parking, trial terms, and juror rules.

The jury source shown below connects the clerk's administrative role to a practical court service. It tells Ashville jurors where to report, notes free parking, and explains courthouse screening.

Jurors should follow the summons and current court instructions rather than treating general office hours as a reporting time.

The official local jury instructions tell jurors to report to the Main Courtroom in Ashville. Parking around the courthouse is free, but jurors should allow time for parking and the metal detector. Weapons and smoking are prohibited, and jurors may not bring cell phones. Normal jury-service hours are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; most cases last one to five days. Juror pay is $10 per day plus $0.05 per mile for one round trip each day.

Kathryn Burke also serves as Absentee Election Manager. That county role is separate from managing court records, yet it is part of the official office profile. Election questions should follow the county's absentee-election procedures, while case searches, filings, fines, subpoenas, and certified court copies remain tied to Circuit Clerk duties.

St. Clair Online Court Access

Most remote St. Clair County trial-court research runs through Alacourt ACCESS, also called Just One Look. It covers criminal, civil, small claims, state traffic, domestic relations, and child support records. Name and case-number searches each cost $9.99, and even a no-match result counts as a search. Case reports may show case status, settings, parties, financial history, actions, and rulings. Document images cost $5 for the first 20 pages and $0.50 for each later page. Verify spelling and the case number before paying.

AlaFile serves e-filing and registered workflows. The St. Clair court home page says a self-represented user seeking e-notices registers online, prints the form, and presents it with state-issued photo identification at the Clerk's Office. This is different from buying a public case report. Older, restricted, or non-imaged documents still require clerk contact.

Probate services use a separate county office. The county's Probate Office FAQ and Probate contact page are pictured below because they help prevent court-record requests from going to the Circuit Clerk when the Probate Office is the holder.

The FAQ publishes Probate Office hours and directs marriage-certificate questions to Alabama's post-2019 process. The separate official Probate contact source leads into the second captured view.

The contact source lists both Probate branches, while the Circuit Clerk remains the correct keeper for Circuit and District Court case files.