How to Search Criminal Dockets
New Mexico Case Lookup is the statewide public route to case and register information. Pick the court type and the Chaves location if you know it. Choose the criminal category. Then add a filing year or case number to narrow things down. What you get back is a register of actions. It is not an online packet containing every pleading or exhibit.
Start with the court named on a citation, notice, charging paper, or earlier case document. Felony trial matters usually sit in Chaves District Court. Misdemeanors, DWI, traffic, and felony preliminary hearings may be Roswell Magistrate records instead. A city ordinance or municipal DWI case can belong to Roswell, Dexter, Hagerman, or Lake Arthur Municipal Court.
- Open Case Lookup and select the court type, court location, and criminal case category.
- Enter a full case number if available, or use a name with the known year and status filters.
- Match the result by court location, filing date, category, and case status rather than by a name alone.
- Read the register entries for settings, motions, orders, plea activity, and disposition.
- Ask the court holding the file for inspection, an electronic copy, or certification when the register is not enough.
Chaves Criminal Docket Search Fields
The official search instructions allow more than a plain name search. Location matters a great deal in Chaves County. District, Magistrate, and municipal criminal matters can all surface in one statewide search. Picking the wrong court is easy. Adding a case number, category, year, and status keeps you from grabbing a result from the wrong place. Add those fields. They keep your search on target.
| Search field | How it helps with a Chaves criminal docket |
|---|---|
| Court type and location | Separates District, Magistrate, and municipal court records. |
| Case category | Limits results to criminal matters instead of civil, probate, or traffic categories. |
| Year and case number | Targets a known filing period or a specific court-assigned record. |
| Status and filed-date range | Helps sort open and closed cases or focus on a time period. |
New Mexico’s expungement materials show a sample form like D-202-CR-2023-0000. Its letters and digits indicate court, category, year, and sequence. An incomplete or older number should be confirmed with the clerk. Don’t decode it as an outcome.
What a Criminal Docket Shows
A register of actions logs the case’s court activity in order. Detail varies with access level and case category. Keep one caution in mind. A listed hearing, motion, or order proves only that an event was recorded. The entry does not hand you the underlying document. Nor does it settle the result unless it says so itself.
| Case number | A court-assigned identifier, such as D-202-CR-2023-0000, used to locate the record. |
|---|---|
| Charge or filing event | The registering event or charging information as public access permits; the register is not the charging document itself. |
| Hearing settings | Events such as arraignment, preliminary hearing, motion hearing, trial, or sentencing. |
| Plea and orders | Recorded plea activity and the court’s orders, subject to the information available in the public register. |
| Disposition and status | A recorded outcome or case status. “Closed” alone is not proof of expungement. |
Chaves Criminal Register and File
Case Lookup offers case and register information but no court documents. A complaint, judgment, transcript, exhibit, or signed order may be missing. That can happen even when the Chaves criminal docket lists the event. Registered re:SearchNM access can supply case and document access. It remains subject to account tier and case permissions.
When permitted online access falls short, ask the court that holds the file. The judiciary IPRA route requests the court location. It also asks for your contact details, the person whose records are sought, and the record type. Include the case number and a particular description. Request a dated order or a specified judgment. A broad grab of records usually serves you worse than a precise ask.
Stages on a Criminal Docket
Criminal docket entries usually open with a filing or charging event. After that come court settings and rulings as the case moves along. In a qualifying felony matter, a preliminary hearing may take place at Magistrate Court first. Then the trial matter proceeds in District Court. The charging route and sequence depend on the case. So read an event label as a stage, never as a conclusion.
Docket flow: Charge Filed › Arraignment › Pretrial Settings › Plea or Trial › Disposition › Sentencing
Arraignment, motion, continuance, plea, judgment, and disposition each describe different court activity. A dismissal is not an acquittal. A scheduled trial is not a conviction. The case register gives context, while the clerk can identify the controlling public order or certified record.
Chaves Criminal Drug Court Records
The Fifth Judicial District’s Chaves Adult Drug Court is a treatment-court program, and its page posts public program information along with confidentiality boundaries. A general criminal register does not open up treatment information just because a related case exists. Keep ordinary public court entries separate from restricted treatment-related material when making requests.
The program page can help you identify the court service. It is no substitute for the Chaves criminal docket or a complete treatment record.
Which Court Holds Criminal Dockets
No single clerk in Chaves County keeps every criminal docket. The Fifth Judicial District Court in Roswell serves as the general-jurisdiction trial court for felony matters and related proceedings. Roswell Magistrate Court carries its own limited-jurisdiction criminal responsibilities. Each municipal court maintains its city-court records separately.
Choose the court first and a statewide case search becomes far more reliable. One event can generate records at more than one level, and a Magistrate preliminary-hearing record is not the later District Court trial record. A city case stays with the municipal clerk even when the courthouse sits in Roswell.
Chaves Criminal Court-Level Split
Let the type of allegation and the court named in the paperwork guide where you look. The Fifth District’s court descriptions draw a practical line between felony trial matters and the Magistrate Court’s misdemeanor, DWI, traffic, and preliminary-hearing work. Municipal jurisdiction, meanwhile, covers city petty misdemeanors, traffic, DWI/DUI, and ordinances.
| Court record | Criminal docket role | Record route |
|---|---|---|
| Chaves District Court | Felony trial matters, juvenile and criminal appeals where applicable | District clerk and statewide Case Lookup |
| Roswell Magistrate Court | Misdemeanors, DWI/DUI, traffic, felony preliminary hearings | Magistrate clerk and statewide Case Lookup |
| Chaves municipal courts | City ordinances, petty misdemeanors, municipal traffic and DWI/DUI | The relevant municipal clerk |
The official district judges page identifies the Roswell divisions of Chaves District Court. A division listing maps court organization. It is not the complete public history of every criminal case.
Division information can help you confirm a District Court setting. For the records themselves, the register and the clerk remain the sources.
Chaves Criminal Federal Docket Boundary
A federal criminal case tied to Chaves County lives outside the New Mexico Case Lookup. It also sits outside the Fifth Judicial District criminal docket. The court name and case number tell you which system to use. A state-court entry is not a federal docket, and a federal record does not belong to a Chaves County state court. Confirm the jurisdiction first. The official federal entry point is the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico. Its site shows federal case information and filing channels.
Federal criminal docket documents come through PACER and CM/ECF. Skip the Chaves County state-court register search for those.
Chaves Criminal Clerk Channels
For a District criminal record, contact the Chaves County District Court Clerk's Office at 400 N. Virginia Ave., Roswell, NM 88201. Call 575-622-2212, or reach records, pro se, and non-e-filed matters at rosdfax@nmcourts.gov. Before you call or write, know the case, the document, and the copy type you need.
Roswell Magistrate Court Clerk’s Office
400 N. Virginia Ave., Suite G-1
Roswell, NM 88201
575-624-6088
The Magistrate office keeps its own misdemeanor, DWI, traffic, and preliminary-hearing records. Its Roswell location does not put those files under the City of Roswell, so send Magistrate requests to the Magistrate clerk.
Public Access and Sealed Criminal Dockets
New Mexico court records start from a presumption of public access. Even so, a criminal docket can be redacted, sealed, confidential, or walled off from a given online tier. Juvenile criminal cases do not appear in the online public record under the state's public-access information. Treatment-related, protected-identifier, domestic-violence, and court-protected material needs special handling. An online absence is not expungement. It may reflect a security restriction or a redaction. It may also reflect incomplete scanning, a court-level mismatch, or simple portal scope. A narrow request to the clerk can reveal something. The clerk can show whether a public register, copy, or certification exists.
Key Rules:
NMSA 1978, § 14-2-1 recognizes the public-policy right to inspect public records through the court’s operational access route.
NMSA 1978, § 14-2-8 supports a written request that identifies the requester and describes the record with reasonable particularity.
Rule 1-079 NMRA covers court-record access, sealing, and redaction of protected identifiers.
Chaves Criminal DWI Docket Context
The state's 2024 DWI Dispositions Report counts cases in bulk, not by person. It lists 46 disposed DWI cases in Chaves District Court and 318 in Chaves Magistrate Court for calendar year 2024. Those are aggregate court figures for the year, not a searchable roster of any Chaves criminal docket, and not proof of anyone's case outcome.
Read a DWI entry like any other docket event. A disposition label is part of the court file. The judiciary's docket system does not hold motor-vehicle driving records.
Chaves Criminal Docket Access Limits
New Mexico's public-access information separates register data anyone can view from records restricted by rule, statute, court order, or access tier. Juvenile, sealed, treatment-related, and protected-identifier material may never show up in an ordinary online Chaves criminal docket result, and personal identifying information is left out of the public Case Lookup display too. Registering for re:SearchNM grants no right to see a sealed or protected document. Need something specific? Identify the Chaves court, the case number, the date range, and the document type, then ask the clerk whether inspection or a copy is available with the required redactions.
Chaves Criminal Docket Copy Fees
The Fifth District's published fee page splits copy fees by court. District Court copies and Magistrate Court copies are priced separately, so confirm the current amount, the delivery method, and which court holds the record before paying. That matters most when the order or certification you want is not available online.
| Chaves court request | Published amount |
|---|---|
| District photocopy | $.35 per page |
| District certification | $1.50 per seal |
| Magistrate photocopy | $.50 per page |
| Magistrate electronic or fax copy | $1 each |
Certification and copying are two different services with two different charges. Treat the published schedule as a starting point, and ask the clerk whether the specific Chaves criminal record is public and what fee applies.