About the Evangeline Parish Clerk of Court
Randall M. "Randy" Deshotel serves as Evangeline Parish Clerk of Court, and the Louisiana Clerks of Court Association (LCCA) directory tags him as in office since July 2012. His welcome message on the clerk's website mentions his work with the Evangeline Parish Chamber of Commerce and the Mamou Rotary Club. The office is elected parish-wide for four years at a time.
Louisiana's constitution packs several roles into this one elected position. The clerk keeps the record of the 13th Judicial District Court, serves as ex officio notary public, and acts as parish recorder of conveyances, mortgages, and other acts. State election law also makes the clerk the chief election officer of Evangeline Parish and a member of the parish board of election supervisors. Beyond those core duties, the Ville Platte office sells certified copies of birth and death certificates, runs the jury pool (its website posts a 13-part guide for jurors), and links a printout of state and local elected officials dated December 2025.
According to Wikipedia, the parish was created in 1910 from land that had belonged to St. Landry Parish, and the state's Local Louisiana page says it takes its name from the Acadian heroine of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "Evangeline." The 2020 Census base counted 32,343 residents; the July 2024 estimate is 31,745. Land area is about 662 square miles.
You can find every other parish office in the Louisiana Clerks of Court directory.
Court records in Evangeline Parish
Civil suits, criminal cases, successions, and the other matters heard by the 13th Judicial District Court are filed with this clerk. The clerk's Civil Fees page carries an "e-File Now" button that opens eClerks LA, the statewide portal run by the Louisiana Clerks' Remote Access Authority, so civil filers can submit electronically there instead of at the counter.
For searching, the clerk's navigation links a "public records search" that runs on a cotthosting.com eSearch system. Its login page, viewed in October 2026, lists these subscription options:
- $20.00 for 24 hours
- $75.00 for 30 days
- $400.00 for 180 days
- $750.00 for 365 days
Printing costs $1.00 per page, and each credit card or PayPal transaction carries a $0.30 service fee. New users fill out and sign a registration form, and the account is approved before it works. The login page does not say which record types or years are indexed; it points to a "Good Thru Dates" utility instead, so confirm coverage before you buy a long subscription.
A free alternative for basic index searching is the eClerks LA Statewide Portal, which requires an account and indexes land records, marriage licenses, and civil, family, and probate records across Louisiana. It does not replace a parish subscription for viewing document images.
Louisiana's Public Records Law lets any person get copies of public records, with exceptions set by law, and it bars charging a fee merely to inspect a record. Some files are not public at all: juvenile court records (other than traffic) are confidential, and an expunged record is pulled from public access, though law enforcement can still see it. The statewide guides to court records and criminal records go further into who can see what.
Land, mortgage, and property records
Deeds, mortgages, leases, and other instruments affecting Evangeline Parish land are recorded in this office. The clerk posts a recording fee schedule signed by Randy Deshotel and dated December 21, 2021, which cites the 2017 statewide fee act that took effect August 1, 2017. As posted in October 2026, a document recorded in one index type costs:
- $105 for 1 to 5 pages
- $205 for 6 to 25 pages
- $305 for 26 to 50 pages
- $305 plus $5 for each page over 50
Each of those charges includes up to ten indexed names, a certified copy, and the LCRAA portal fee, according to the schedule. Filers who prefer not to mail paper can e-record through any of the three vendors the clerk lists: CSC, ePN, and Simplifile.
Louisiana's Civil Code ties recording to location. A mortgage on immovable property goes in the mortgage records of the parish where the property sits, and other instruments go in that parish's conveyance records. Census adjacency data shows Evangeline touching six parishes. Property that runs into St. Landry may need a search with the St. Landry Parish Clerk of Court in Opelousas, and acreage on the Acadia side belongs in the books of the Acadia Parish Clerk of Court in Crowley. Allen, Avoyelles, Jefferson Davis, and Rapides each keep their own land records too.
Each of those offices is a separate recorder, so a search in Ville Platte will not turn up an instrument recorded in a neighboring parish. For background on Evangeline's recorder role in the statewide system, read the Louisiana property records guide.
Marriage licenses and family records
The Evangeline clerk issues marriage licenses. Its Marriage Licenses page links a printable State of Louisiana application form, which includes the covenant marriage declaration, but the page does not list the fee, the waiting period, or the documents to bring. Call the office before you go.
The waiting period, at least, is set by state law: 24 hours must pass after issuance before an officiant may perform the ceremony, unless a judge or authorized justice of the peace waives the delay for serious and meritorious reasons. A license lasts 30 days, and a couple choosing covenant marriage makes that choice on the application and files a declaration of intent with the issuing official.
Once the wedding is over, the officiant has ten days to file copies of the certificate with the issuing clerk, and the clerk forwards a copy to the state registrar of vital records. Certified copies of marriages licensed in Evangeline therefore come from the Ville Platte office, since the Louisiana Department of Health only keeps marriage records for licenses bought in Orleans Parish.
Divorce judgments are part of the 13th Judicial District Court record. The Department of Health does not issue certified divorce decrees; those come from the clerk in the parish where the divorce was granted. Anyone tracing an Evangeline marriage or divorce through other parishes can start with the statewide guides to marriage records and divorce records.
Birth and death certificates
According to the clerk's birth certificates page (October 2026), a certified birth certificate costs $34.00, and a birth certificate together with a birth card costs $48.00; a birth card cannot be bought on its own. Death certificates cost $26.00 and are available only back to July 7, 2012. Applications are made in person with a current ID, payment can be cash, credit, or debit, and mailing adds $5.00 by regular mail or $10.00 by certified mail. When the requester's relationship to the person named on the certificate is not one of those listed on the application, the page says a Louisiana Vital Registry Release Authorization Form must be completed as well.
Courts that serve Evangeline Parish
The 13th Judicial District Court serves Evangeline Parish and no other parish, so every district court case in the parish runs through the Ville Platte clerk. The clerk's website describes itself as the clerk for that court. No separate court website was found.
The City Court of Ville Platte handles a smaller slice of local cases. R.S. 13:1953 created it effective January 1, 1967, with one judge and a city marshal, and extends its territorial jurisdiction throughout Ward 1 of Evangeline Parish. Under the Code of Civil Procedure, its civil jurisdiction runs concurrent with the district court up to $25,000. This page did not confirm where the city court keeps its case files, so ask that court directly. No official website for the city court was found.
Appeals from the 13th Judicial District Court go to the Court of Appeal, Third Circuit, which sits in Lake Charles. All six of Evangeline's neighboring parishes appeal to the same circuit.
Visiting the Evangeline Parish courthouse
The clerk's office is Suite 104 at 200 Court Street in Ville Platte, and the sheriff's office is Suite 100 at the same address, according to the Louisiana Sheriffs' Association. The clerk's contact page lists hours of 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, State law sets 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays as the baseline for clerks' offices and allows a clerk to open earlier or close later. A holiday closure schedule is linked from the home page; check it before planning a visit near a holiday.
The clerk lists a post office box in Ville Platte as its mailing address, and the site gives evangelinecoc@yahoo.com as a contact for questions on its birth certificates page. Bring a current ID for any birth or death certificate request and the names, dates, or instrument numbers you are looking for when you come to search records.
The clerk's website does not describe parking, entrances, or courthouse security rules.
Other Evangeline Parish offices
Charles Guillory is the sheriff, according to the Louisiana Sheriffs' Association, and the office's website is evangelineparishsheriff.org. Besides law enforcement and the parish jail, the sheriff collects property taxes everywhere in Louisiana except Orleans. See Louisiana sheriff's offices and the inmate search guide for how those functions work statewide.
The assessor, listed by the Louisiana Assessors' Association as Chris Guillory, maintains property valuations at evangelineassessor.com. The assessors guide explains assessed value and the homestead exemption.
Parish government is the Evangeline Parish Police Jury. Its website includes a history of Louisiana police juries and a recording of a police jury meeting conducted in French. The parish government guide explains how police juries are organized.