About the Madison Parish Clerk of Court
Marion Hopkins serves as Clerk of Court for Madison Parish. The Louisiana Clerks of Court Association (LCCA) directory marks the start of the current tenure as July 2008. The office works out of the Madison Parish Courthouse on North Cedar Street in downtown Tallulah, a Colonial Revival building completed in 1939 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in February 1989.
Two jobs come with the title. Article V, Section 28 of the Louisiana Constitution provides for an elected clerk of the district court in every parish, serving four-year terms, and adds the roles of ex officio notary public and parish recorder of conveyances, mortgages, and other acts. So the same Tallulah office that dockets suits for the 6th Judicial District Court also records every deed, mortgage, lien, map, and plat filed for land in Madison Parish.
A third job arrives every election season. The clerk's elections page explains that the clerk is the parish's chief election officer, sits on the Board of Election Supervisors, and keeps custody of the voting machines. The same page lists 26 precincts and says the office opens at 5:30 a.m. on election day and stays open until returns are tabulated.
Madison is a small parish on Louisiana's northeastern edge. The legislature created it on January 19, 1838, from part of Concordia Parish, and it takes its name from President James Madison. Tallulah is the seat and the only city, and Delta, Mound, and Richmond are villages, according to the state's Local Louisiana page. The parish covers about 624 square miles of delta lowland along the Mississippi River, with Warren County, Mississippi, on the far bank. The Census Bureau counted 10,007 residents in its 2020 base and estimated 9,093 in July 2024.
Contact details for every other parish are in the Louisiana Clerks of Court directory.
Court records in Madison Parish
Civil suits, criminal cases, successions, and family matters filed in Madison Parish become part of the record this clerk keeps for the 6th Judicial District Court. The clerk's forms page posts several documents people ask for most: petitions for divorce with and without children, an affidavit to proceed in forma pauperis (without paying costs up front), a civil case cover sheet, and the marriage application.
For remote research the clerk offers Madison Parish eSearch, hosted on the cotthosting.com platform. It carries mortgage and conveyance records with both index and images, while criminal and civil suits are searchable by index only. That last point matters: you can confirm that a case exists and find its number online, but a copy of the actual pleading still has to come from the office.
Pricing is unclear. The clerk's Online Records page lists a day subscription at $20 and a monthly subscription at $50. The eSearch portal's own welcome screen, viewed in October 2026, lists $20 for a day, $100 for a month, and $750 for a year, each with $1.00 per printed page. Until the two pages agree, ask the office which monthly price applies before you sign up.
Filing has moved online as well. Civil and criminal e-filing runs through Clerk Connect, and the clerk's e-recording page also links civil e-filing access through eClerks LA. State law required every district clerk to facilitate electronic filing, recording, and remote access through the portal of the Louisiana Clerks' Remote Access Authority by January 1, 2026. The clerk's home page links that portal under the heading "Access Statewide Records."
People looking for a criminal history should know how the state system works. The State Police describe Louisiana as a closed record state, so its central criminal history file is not open to the public. When an arrest in that file has no final disposition, the State Police point people to the clerk of court, the district attorney, or the city prosecutor in the parish of conviction, which for a Madison case means this office. Juvenile proceedings are a separate matter; the Children's Code makes juvenile court records confidential except for traffic violations.
For the statewide rules, see the guides to Louisiana court records, criminal records, and civil records.
Land, mortgage, and property records
The clerk's fee page sets out recording charges under R.S. 13:844, with a schedule updated August 1, 2017. As viewed in October 2026, recording a document of 1 to 5 pages costs $105, 6 to 25 pages costs $205, and 26 to 50 pages costs $305. Copies are $2.00 per page, a certified copy is $10.00 plus the copy fee, and a mortgage or lien certificate covering a 10-year search is $20 for one name and one tract.
Title work can be done from a distance. The eSearch portal shows conveyance and mortgage images, and its welcome text gives a practical tip: when searching mortgage cancellations recorded before 2003, search both the first and last names. For filing, the clerk's E-Recording page says the office accepts electronic recordings from Simplifile, EPN, and CSC.
Louisiana's Civil Code sends a mortgage or a sale of land to the records of the parish where the land lies. Madison touches four other parishes, so a tract near a parish line may need a second search. Land that runs into Tensas Parish belongs in the books of the Tensas Parish Clerk of Court in St. Joseph, and acreage along the other borders may be recorded with the East Carroll Parish Clerk of Court, the Richland Parish Clerk of Court, or the Franklin Parish Clerk of Court. A Louisiana clerk's books stop at the state line, so property across the river in Warren County is recorded in Mississippi, not in Tallulah.
One more statewide rule affects every sale recorded here: an act conveying immovable property must name the person responsible for paying property taxes and the address where tax notices should go. For background on searching Louisiana land records in general, see the property records guide.
Marriage licenses and family records
Couples marrying in Louisiana can buy their license from the Madison Parish clerk. The clerk's marriage license page (viewed October 2026) sets the fee at $32.50, paid in cash or by money order, and says that amount includes a certified copy of the license once the marriage is recorded. Only one party needs to come in, but that person must bring everything for both: a state certified birth certificate or birth card for each party, a divorce decree or death certificate if either was married before, both Social Security numbers, and mailing addresses.
The same page asks applicants to get the license at least "24 hours (3 days)" before the ceremony. Louisiana law sets the waiting period at 24 hours after the license issues, and a judge or justice of the peace authorized to perform the marriage can waive that delay for serious and meritorious reasons. If the three-day wording affects your plans, ask the office what it means. The license expires 30 days after it is issued, and the ceremony must take place in Louisiana. Couples choosing a covenant marriage need a notarized affidavit and attestation and a declaration of intent, according to the clerk.
After the wedding, the officiant has ten days to file the completed certificate copies with the clerk who issued the license. That is why a certified copy of a Madison Parish marriage comes from this office: the state's Vital Records Registry keeps marriage records only for licenses bought in Orleans Parish.
Divorce judgments, custody orders, and support rulings are part of the 6th Judicial District Court record. Vital Records does not issue divorce decrees, so a certified copy of a decree comes from the clerk of the parish that granted it. See the marriage records guide and the divorce records guide for how this works across the state.
Courts that serve Madison Parish
The 6th Judicial District Court covers three parishes along the Mississippi: East Carroll, Madison, and Tensas. No official website for the court itself turned up during research, so the clerk's office is the practical point of contact for Madison cases. Each of the three parishes has its own elected clerk, which means a case filed in Lake Providence or St. Joseph sits in that parish's records, not in Tallulah. Researchers following a family or a business across the district may need to check with the Tensas Parish clerk and the East Carroll clerk as well.
Madison Parish has no city court. The list of city courts in Article 4843 of the Code of Civil Procedure does not include one in the parish, so there is no city court docket in Tallulah to search alongside the district court record. Under the Children's Code, district courts hold original juvenile jurisdiction everywhere except the four parishes that have special juvenile courts (Caddo, Orleans, Jefferson, and East Baton Rouge).
Appeals from Madison Parish go to the Court of Appeal, Second Circuit, which sits in Shreveport.
Visiting the Madison Parish courthouse
The clerk's office is inside the 1939 courthouse at 100 North Cedar Street. The building also serves as a polling place: the clerk's elections page lists precincts 14, 23, and 24 as voting at the courthouse, so expect more traffic on election days.
Office hours are a small puzzle. The clerk's website footer says Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., but the clerk's eSearch portal says 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. State law sets 8:30 to 4:30 on weekdays as the standard and lets clerks open earlier, but neither page explains the difference, so call ahead if you plan to arrive before 8:30.
The office also accepts passport applications, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on weekdays, and the clerk's passport page lists a $35 clerk processing fee for each applicant (October 2026). Notary service is available too, with a $5.00 fee on the posted schedule.
If you write rather than visit, note that the clerk's pages show two email addresses. The Contact Us page gives the same address the LCCA directory lists, while the site footer shows a different address at the clerk's own domain. A phone call can confirm which inbox is monitored.
Other Madison Parish offices
The sheriff is the parish's chief law enforcement officer, runs the jail, and, as in every parish except Orleans, collects state and parish property taxes. The Louisiana Sheriffs' Association lists Chad Ezell as Sheriff of Madison Parish, and the office is online at madisonso.com. The sheriff's offices guide explains those duties, and the inmate search guide covers how to find someone in a parish jail or state prison.
The assessor sets the value of taxable property in the parish. No official website for the Madison Parish Assessor could be verified for this page; the state's Local Louisiana listing points only to the Louisiana Assessors' Association. The assessors and property tax guide explains assessed value and the homestead exemption.
The parish governing body is the Madison Parish Police Jury, named in the Legislative Auditor's 2021 audit report. The state's listing points to madisonparish.org, which showed only a "coming soon" page in October 2026, with a phone number of 318-574-3451 and the courthouse address on North Cedar Street. For how police juries work, see the parish government guide.