Cheboygan County Circuit Court

Cheboygan County Trial Courts Overview

Michigan splits its county trial work across three benches, and Cheboygan County follows that pattern. The Circuit Court is the court of general jurisdiction. It hears felony criminal cases, civil suits of $25,000 or more, equity matters, and family cases such as divorce, custody, parenting time, child support, paternity, and personal protection orders. It is also the county's felony adjudication court, the place where serious criminal cases are tried and sentenced.

The District Court sits below the Circuit Court and carries the heaviest daily traffic. It handles misdemeanors, civil infractions, small civil cases, landlord-tenant summary proceedings, and traffic matters. It also runs the front end of every felony, from arraignment through the preliminary examination, before a case is sent up to the Circuit Court. A separate Probate and Family Court handles estates, guardianships, conservatorships, mental-health proceedings, adoptions, and juvenile-family matters.

All of these courts share one government campus, so a records search here is rarely a single stop. A civil or criminal file may open in the District Court and move to the Circuit Court, while probate matters follow their own confidential track. The county clerk, who also serves as the circuit court clerk, ties the court records to the county's broader records office.

Cheboygan County Court Directory

Michigan courts are numbered and named rather than labeled first, second, or third, so the county's trial benches are the 53rd Circuit Court, the 89th District Court, and the Probate and Family Court. All three sit at the same Main Street complex in the city of Cheboygan, and all three keep the same weekday hours, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., excluding holidays. The table below lists each court with its jurisdiction, address, and public phone line.

The clerk phone shown for the Circuit Court reaches the County Clerk/Register of Deeds office, which also acts as the circuit court clerk. The District Court number is the court's traffic and civil-infraction line, which is the number most callers actually need.

The 53rd Circuit Court in Cheboygan County

The 53rd Circuit Court is the top trial bench for the county. It decides felony criminal cases after they are bound over from the District Court, and it hears the larger civil disputes, those seeking $25,000 or more, along with equity claims and the full range of family law. Divorce, custody, parenting time, child support, paternity, and personal protection order matters all live here.

The court is unusually open about public access. The county's 53rd Circuit Court page points the public to live-streamed hearings on YouTube and to public docket display pages, so a hearing can often be watched or checked online even when the underlying filings are not posted. Case data is searchable through the state MiCOURT system using the court's code, C53. Two public docket display pages, linked from the county, show party name, hearing time, hearing information, case number, and CTN for scheduled matters.

The Circuit Court also runs a specialty program. Its Recovery Court is a treatment-focused docket for eligible participants, an alternative track that sits alongside the standard criminal caseload. Because the county clerk serves as the circuit court clerk, certified copies and many filings for these cases route through the clerk's counter rather than a separate court records window.

The 89th District Court in Cheboygan County

The 89th District Court is the county's lower trial court and its busiest one. It hears misdemeanors, civil infractions, small civil claims, and landlord-tenant summary proceedings, and it handles the front end of felony cases through arraignment, the probable cause conference, the preliminary examination, and bindover to the Circuit Court. The court serves both Cheboygan and Presque Isle Counties. Judge Michael J. Ekdahl was appointed in February 2024 and began his term on March 18, 2024.

The county's 89th District Court page gathers the court's public tools in one place, from traffic-division contacts to court rules, Michigan Legal Help, and the state Clean Slate resource for set-asides.

That page is the practical starting point for anyone with a District Court matter, since it links the traffic division, the court calendar, and the court's dispositions menu. The traffic and civil-infraction line is (231) 627-8853.

Posting bond is a District Court workflow with a specific twist. During business hours, bond is cash-only at the court office. After hours, card payments shift to a kiosk run by the sheriff. The county's bond-posting page spells out both routes so families know where the handoff happens.

The bond page matters because it tells the reader which door controls which payment. Cash goes to the court counter by day; a card goes to the sheriff kiosk after the counter closes.

Circuit Court vs District Court in Cheboygan County

The clearest way to know which bench holds a Cheboygan County case is to compare what each court can decide. The Circuit Court is the trial court for serious and higher-value matters, while the District Court handles the lighter-weight and early-stage work. The comparison below lines up the two courts on case types, dollar thresholds, criminal role, and traffic.

Family and probate matters do not fit this two-column split cleanly. Divorce and custody sit with the Circuit Court, while estates, guardianships, and juvenile-family cases belong to the Probate and Family Court on its own confidential track.

How a Case Moves Through the Cheboygan County Courts

A criminal case in the county usually starts in the District Court and, if it is a felony, climbs to the Circuit Court. Misdemeanors and traffic matters often finish in the District Court. Understanding that path helps a searcher know where a file is likely to sit at any given moment.

Felony criminal flow: Arrest or filing › District Court arraignment › Probable cause conference › Preliminary examination › Bindover › Circuit Court trial or plea › Sentencing › Michigan Court of Appeals

Civil flow: Complaint filed › Answer › Discovery › Motions › Trial › Judgment › Appeal

A misdemeanor or civil-infraction case is simpler. It opens in the District Court, moves through arraignment or a plea, then a hearing or default, and ends in a disposition, with a short appeal window for informal-hearing outcomes.

Searching Cheboygan County Court Records

The county does not run its own free-text case portal. Public case search runs through MiCOURT, the statewide Michigan Courts system, using the court's code. The Circuit Court uses code C53 and the Probate and Family Court uses code P16. The Michigan Courts case-search page lets the public look up civil, traffic, criminal, domestic, and probate matters depending on the court selected.

The statewide search exposes a compact set of fields. Starting with a party name or a case number and then narrowing by court usually gets a searcher to the right file fastest.

Beyond MiCOURT, the county offers several access channels. The Circuit Court's public docket display pages show scheduled hearings, its YouTube livestream carries public hearings, and the District Court menu paths lead to the traffic division, calendar, and dispositions. When a matter is not public or a certified copy is needed, the County Clerk/Register of Deeds counter is the fallback, since that office also serves as the circuit court clerk.

Not every case is open to the public. The Probate and Family Court plainly states that juvenile delinquency, neglect and abuse, and adoption matters are not public, and Michigan court rules protect personal identifiers such as dates of birth, driver's license numbers, state ID numbers, passport numbers, and financial account numbers.

The District Court Traffic Division in Cheboygan County

Traffic work is a District Court staple, and the court's process is timeline-driven. A civil infraction begins with the ticket, and the driver has 21 days from the issue date to enter a plea of admit, admit with explanation, or deny. Pleas can be made in person, through a representative, by email to the District Court, or by mail. Miss the window and the case can go to a default judgment, with a $30 late fee. Misdemeanor traffic matters carry the same 21-day answer window, and appeals from an informal hearing are due within seven days.

The court traffic record is not the same file as a state driving record. The court file shows the ticket, plea, hearing, and outcome. A driver's history, points, and license status are held by the Michigan Secretary of State. Drivers who need an official history use the state's driving-record service rather than the court.

That state service is where a driver orders the official record the District Court does not produce. It sits on the driver-history side of the split, separate from the courtroom case file.

The state also explains what those driver and vehicle records contain and who may request them. The Secretary of State's driver and vehicle records FAQ covers access rules and the difference between the public and protected portions of a record.

That FAQ helps a reader see why the two records differ, since the state controls who can view a driver's private data while the court file tracks the citation itself. The county's own traffic court records page walks through the citation side in more detail.

Probate and Family Court in Cheboygan County

The Probate and Family Court is a separate bench from the Circuit and District Courts, though it shares the same building. Judge Daryl Vizina presides, and the office sits in Room 212 with its own phone line and email. Its jurisdiction covers estates, guardianships, conservatorships, mental-health proceedings, adoptions, and juvenile-family matters, and it keeps a will-and-trust depository.

Public access is narrower here than on the other benches. Juvenile delinquency, neglect and abuse, and adoption files are closed, and protected personal identifiers are redacted from what remains public. Probate case search runs through MiCOURT under code P16. A fuller walkthrough of estates, guardianships, and filing details lives on the Probate/Family Court records page.

Appeals From Cheboygan County Courts

A decision from the county's trial courts is not always the end of the line. In Michigan, the appellate path runs from the trial court to the Michigan Court of Appeals and then, by leave, to the Michigan Supreme Court. Circuit Court judgments are the usual candidates for review, though certain District Court and Probate Court rulings can also be appealed up the chain.

Federal matters follow a different route. Cases arising under federal law for this region are handled by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, with Bay City serving as the practical division for the northern counties. Federal appeals then move to the Sixth Circuit rather than the state appellate courts.

Note: A trial-court file stays with the originating Cheboygan County bench even after an appeal is filed, so record requests still begin at the clerk or court that first handled the case.

Cheboygan County Courthouse Location and Contact

Every county trial court operates from the same shared campus in the city of Cheboygan. The Circuit Court, District Court, Probate and Family Court, County Clerk/Register of Deeds, and the sheriff's jail and lobby all cluster at one Main Street address. That makes the courthouse a single place where records, hearings, bond posting, and custody questions intersect. Mail for the courts and clerk uses the county's post office box.

The contact card below covers the main courthouse complex and the clerk's office, which is the records spine for Circuit Court files.

The prosecuting attorney, Melissa Goodrich, and the sheriff's office round out the criminal-side contacts at the same complex, so victim services, bond, and case questions often trace back to a single campus.