Charge class decides the courtroom:

• Felony: the 6th or 102nd District Court, for every felony grade from state jail level through capital. Filings go to the District Clerk on Walnut Street.
• Class A or B: the County Judge's court, since these carry possible jail. Files stay with the County Clerk in the annex.
• Class C: the justice of the peace on Cedar Street, or a town's municipal court when town police wrote the ticket.

The County Judge here wears two hats. One is running county government. The other is hearing jailable misdemeanors in the constitutional county court. The highest stop for a felony appeal is Austin's Court of Criminal Appeals, and the state's judicial system pamphlet charts every tier.

Four offices handle court business, three on Walnut Street and one on Cedar:

• District Clerk (6th and 102nd District Courts): courthouse, 400 N. Walnut Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, 903-427-3761. Monday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday 8 a.m. to noon; lunch closing noon to 1 p.m.
• County Judge (county court): 400 N. Walnut Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, 903-427-2680. Monday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; dark on Fridays.
• County Clerk (misdemeanor files): annex building, 200 N. Walnut Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, 903-427-2401. Monday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday 8 a.m. to noon.
• JP court (tickets): 500 N. Cedar Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, 903-427-3322. Monday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., lunch noon to 1 p.m.; Friday 8 a.m. to noon.

Plan visits before Friday lunch, because most of these counters shut at noon that day.

Texas lets an incorporated town hold its own municipal court. Those courts hear fine-only cases, mostly tickets that town's officers wrote inside its limits. The justice court on Cedar Street hears that same class when deputies or troopers wrote the ticket. So a Bogata or Clarksville ticket might be due at a city hall instead.

Your citation names the court, its address and the appearance date. Misplaced it? Call the justice court, 500 N. Cedar Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, at 903-427-3322 and ask whether your name is on its docket. If it isn't, Sheriff's dispatch at 903-427-3838 can steer you toward the right town hall.

Can't cover a Class C fine at once? The justice court's county web page lists payment plans and community service. Ask the clerk there for a moment before the judge. Texas law allows both options (arts. 45A.252-45A.261).

Each person held on Cedar Street sees a magistrate inside 48 hours of booking (Code of Criminal Procedure art. 15.17). Often that session runs by camera, and it handles four jobs:

1. reading out the charge;
2. explaining rights, including silence, a lawyer and, on a felony, an examining trial;
3. taking a request for appointed counsel from anyone unable to pay;
4. setting bail or a personal bond. For a fine-only offense, the magistrate can instead give a written appearance date and release the person (art. 15.17(b)).

Since 2025, a no-probable-cause finding by the Cedar Street magistrate must be written down within a day (art. 15.17(h)). On a felony, the defense may also ask for an examining trial before indictment. It tests whether probable cause exists (art. 16.01).

Prosecution of a Class A or B charge begins once the Walnut Street prosecutor files its charging paper. Lawyers call that paper an "information." Then the County Judge's docket usually goes like this:

1. Arraignment: the judge checks identity and takes a plea (art. 26.01). Many defense lawyers sign a waiver instead.
2. Pretrial settings: both sides swap evidence and talk offers.
3. Plea or trial: if both sides struck a deal, the County Judge tells the courtroom whether it stands. If the judge balks, the defendant is allowed to retract the plea (art. 26.13).

Penalty follows the class letter, not the offense's label (Penal Code ch. 12):

• Fine-only Class C: $500 is the ceiling, with no jail.
• Class B: Cedar Street time capped at 180 days, fines capped at $2,000.
• Class A: Cedar Street time capped at one year, fines capped at $4,000.

Results range from a dismissal to a jail stay. Middle-ground results include a fine, community supervision of two years or less, or deferred adjudication, where finishing the terms leads to dismissal (arts. 42A.053, 42A.103, 42A.111). Whether a DWI, theft or assault counts as Class A or B turns on its facts, and your lawyer can say which.

Felonies here go to the district courtrooms at 400 N. Walnut Street, Clarksville, TX 75426. The usual order:

1. Magistrate warnings and a bail decision.
2. An examining trial, if the defense asks (art. 16.01).
3. Grand jury review. Nine of the grand jurors, at minimum, must agree to indict (art. 20A.301).
4. Once indicted: arraignment on Walnut Street, pretrial dates and plea talks.
5. A plea, or a trial with Red River jurors.

Where each felony grade sits on the Penal Code ladder (12.32-12.35):

• Lowest rung, state jail felony: somewhere from 180 days to two years, served away from Cedar Street at a TDCJ state jail.
• Third-degree rung: 2 to 10 years, served in TDCJ prison.
• Second-degree rung: 2 to 20 years.
• First-degree rung: life, or 5 to 99 years.
• Any rung may also bring a fine as high as $10,000.

Earlier felony convictions on someone's record can move the case up a rung (Penal Code 12.42). Going down instead, some state jail felonies may draw Class A punishment if the judge so orders (Penal Code 12.44). For felonies, probation and deferred adjudication top out at 10 years.

Violent accusations change both release and punishment. Key differences:

• No personal bond on offenses listed in art. 17.03.
• Possible no-bail hold. After the Proposition 3 vote, the Walnut Street prosecutors may seek a bail denial for capital murder, murder, human trafficking, child indecency and a group of aggravated crimes (Tex. Const. art. I, § 11d).
• Capital cases: only two punishments exist once an adult is convicted: death, or imprisonment for life with parole never on the table. Anyone 17 or younger at the time gets life (Penal Code 12.31).
• Deferral barred: deferred adjudication is unavailable in most murder cases and some other grave crimes (art. 42A.102).
• Domestic cases: after bond is posted, Cedar Street must still hold the person four extra hours. Magistrates here commonly add an emergency protective order lasting for 61 to 91 days. Add serious bodily injury or a deadly weapon to the facts, and that window moves to 91 through 121 days (arts. 17.291, 17.292).

For many violent charges, victims are told before the defendant leaves the Cedar Street lockup (art. 17.29).

One office handles both misdemeanors and felonies: the combined County Attorney and District Attorney, upstairs in the building joined to the courthouse, 400 N. Walnut Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, 903-427-2009. Hours run Monday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Friday 8 a.m. to noon.

No public defender office serves this county. Local judges instead appoint private lawyers under a written plan:

• Request counsel while in front of the magistrate. The request must land with the appointing judge inside 24 hours.
• Because Red River has fewer than 250,000 people, that judge's deadline to appoint is working day three after receipt (art. 1.051).
• Income, debts and dependents are weighed. A person who bonded out can still qualify (art. 26.04).

Red River's written plan is also on file with the state's Texas Indigent Defense Commission (TIDC), 209 West 14th Street, Room 202, Austin, TX 78701, 866-499-0656, and the TIDC plan page has it. Pretrial diversion is sometimes offered, so ask defense counsel to raise it with the Walnut Street prosecutors.

The clerk who holds a file can give its next hearing:

• Felony files: District Clerk, 400 N. Walnut Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, 903-427-3761.
• Class A and B files: County Clerk, 200 N. Walnut Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, 903-427-2401. Order copies at the annex counter or with the county's misdemeanor records request form.
• Class C tickets: justice court, 500 N. Cedar Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, 903-427-3322.

Texas courts also run re:SearchTX, which asks you to sign up for a free account first. Once logged in, you can find a cause number, the assigned court, and filed papers like the indictment. Setting times don't show there, so the clerk's phone line is still the answer for dates.

For a fee, DPS runs a statewide conviction name search that shows past convictions.

From 500 N. Cedar Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, 903-427-3838, Sheriff's deputies serve the bulk of county warrants. The county's one constable keeps an office in the courthouse, 400 N. Walnut Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, and goes through that same dispatch line. Call and ask dispatch whether anything is active under a name. For statewide fugitives, browse the DPS list called Texas 10 Most Wanted.

Talk to a lawyer before acting on a warrant. The usual choices: surrender in person at the Cedar Street jail, or have counsel request a fresh court date from whichever judge issued it. Felony warrants are signed in district court, so call the District Clerk, 400 N. Walnut Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, at 903-427-3761. The justice court, 500 N. Cedar Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, 903-427-3322, handles Class C ones.

Federal prosecutions from Red River land at the Eastern District of Texas courthouse in Texarkana, 500 North State Line Avenue, Room 301, Texarkana, TX 75501, 903-794-8561.

• Hold or release: at the opening Texarkana appearance, a magistrate judge weighs jail against release pending trial (18 U.S.C. 3142).
• Custody: federal prisoners are the Marshals Service's charge, and many sleep in county jail beds it rents. Texarkana office: 903-793-8782. Tyler headquarters: 211 West Ferguson Street, 4th Floor, Tyler, TX 75702, 903-590-1370.
• Prosecutors: the U.S. Attorney's Texarkana branch, 500 State Line Ave N., Suite 402, Texarkana, TX 75501, takes calls through Tyler at 903-590-1400.
• Defense: the Federal Public Defender in Tyler, 110 North College Avenue, Suite 1122, Tyler, TX 75702, 903-531-9233.
• Sentenced: the BOP inmate locator finds people in federal prisons.

1. ICE's request to keep the prisoner (Form I-247A) reaches Cedar Street.
2. Jail staff can then hold the person up to 48 hours after they would otherwise be released (8 CFR 287.7(d)).
3. Texas makes the jail comply. Still, the hold ends once paperwork proves citizenship or lawful presence, under art. 2A.060. Local bodies, including Red River's commissioners, can't adopt rules that hamper immigration enforcement, per Government Code 752.053.
4. SB 8 (2025) gave each jail-running sheriff, Red River's included, a deadline to seek 287(g) status: December 1, 2026.
5. The judge has to tell a non-citizen, on the record, that pleading guilty or no contest could put their immigration status at risk, deportation included (art. 26.13). Weigh immigration fallout with defense counsel before any deal.
6. Check the ICE Online Detainee Locator or call ICE's Dallas field office for North Texas, 8101 N. Stemmons Freeway, Dallas, TX 75247, 972-367-2200.

A felony sentence of third degree or higher is served in a prison unit run by TDCJ, Texas's prison agency. State jail sentences go to TDCJ too, at one of its state jail units (Penal Code 12.35). After sentencing, the person waits on Cedar Street for a TDCJ transfer, passes through intake, and gets assigned to a unit.

• Look up a state prisoner by name, SID or TDCJ number with the state's inmate search. Released or not-yet-arrived people won't appear, and updates trail by a day or more.
• The units themselves are listed one by one in our Texas state prisons guide.
• Community supervision (Texas's term for probation) is handled locally at 400 N. Cedar Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, 903-427-3491.

Juvenile court here takes any youth 10 or older who was still under 17 on the offense date. Seventeen means adult court (Family Code 51.02). The juvenile system calls an offense "delinquent conduct," and a local juvenile board designates the court that hears it (Family Code 51.03, 51.04).

• An officer taking a youth into custody has to notify a parent promptly and explain why (Family Code 52.02).
• Detention hearing: due by working day two, with a lawyer named beforehand (Family Code 54.01).
• Some serious felonies by youths 14 and older can be certified for adult court (Family Code 54.02).

Local Juvenile Probation works from 301 W. Madison Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, 903-427-5761. A parent can phone that Madison Street office about the child's whereabouts and the next hearing.

Texas victims hold rights under art. 56A.051: their safety counts in bail, they get told about court settings, and a victim impact statement is theirs to give. To set up notices, call the prosecutor's office, 400 N. Walnut Street, Clarksville, TX 75426, at 903-427-2009.

• Release alerts: sign up with IVSS-Counties, the state's free, confidential jail notification line, online or at 866-268-8959, any hour.
• Costs: the Crime Victims' Compensation fund, run by the Texas Attorney General, can cover lost pay, counseling and medical care, up to $50,000. Call 800-983-9933.
• After a prison sentence: TDCJ Victim Services takes calls at 800-848-4284.