Ellis County Warrants

Which courts issue warrants in Ellis County

Ellis County is a small-to-medium county whose warrant work is split across four tiers from a single courthouse complex at 109 S. Jackson Street in Waxahachie. Two district courts (the 40th and 443rd) carry the felonies; three county courts at law carry the jailable misdemeanors; four Justice of the Peace precincts and the cities' own municipal courts carry the fine-only Class C tickets. The Ellis County Sheriff serves them all from the jail two blocks south.

Most people land on this page holding a piece of paper and one question: who do I call? In Ellis County the answer is keyed entirely to how serious the underlying charge is, because the courthouse is organized by charge level rather than by town. Felonies sit at the top with the two district courts; the three county courts at law take the misdemeanors that can still mean jail; and at the base, the JP precincts and the city courts handle citations that are punishable only by fine. The four tables that follow give the judge and contact for every Ellis County court that can put your name on a warrant, and the clerks and Sheriff block tells you where the file sits and who comes to serve it.

Bail in every one of these courts runs on the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, Chapter 17; the fine-only Class C path runs on Chapter 45. Read the court name off your citation, indictment, or notice, then jump to its row below — or open the sitewide Courts & Counties directory.

Ellis County District Courts 2 criminal courts · felony

Ellis County has two felony trial courts that issue criminal warrants: the 40th and the 443rd Judicial District Courts. (A third bench, the 378th, is designated for family law only and never appears on a criminal warrant — it is left off this roster on purpose.) Both criminal courts file through the Ellis County District Clerk at 109 S. Jackson Street, and a felony arrest puts you into the Wayne McCollum Detention Center.

Here is the part that saves people a phone call: in Ellis County there are only two courts that can sign a felony warrant, so identifying yours is quick — read the court number off the indictment or the bond paperwork and it is either the 40th or the 443rd. Both are partisan-elected benches that sit in the same Waxahachie courthouse, share the same District Clerk on the second floor, and feed the same booking desk at the jail on S. Jackson Street, where a magistrate reviews bond under Chapter 17. The recall procedure is identical between them; the only thing that changes is which judge's docket your setting lands on. The table gives the judge and the line to call for each.

Both courts and the felony clerk's counter sit in the Ellis County courthouse complex at 109 S. Jackson St., Waxahachie, TX 75165 — the historic 1897 courthouse a block over on W. Main Street is the postcard landmark, but live criminal dockets and filings run out of the 109 S. Jackson facility. To verify a felony setting, case number, or bond, work through the Ellis County District Clerk — one clerk covers both the 40th and the 443rd, so there is no separate lookup per court.

Ellis County Courts at Law 3 courts · Class A/B

The three Ellis County Courts at Law — No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 — handle Class A and B misdemeanors, the band of charges that can carry jail time but fall short of a felony. That covers most DWI, theft, and assault misdemeanors, and the bench and alias warrants attached to them. Each of these courts also carries a probate, guardianship, and mental-health commitment docket, and all three file through the Ellis County Clerk.

If your warrant is for a misdemeanor that could put you in jail, it almost certainly came from one of these three statutory county courts. Their enforcement path is the same one the felony courts use — the Sheriff serves the warrant, booking happens at the Wayne McCollum Detention Center, and a magistrate sets bond under Chapter 17 — so the table below skips repeating that and focuses on what is court-specific: the judge and the records line. All three courts sit at 109 S. Jackson St., Waxahachie, TX 75165, and the misdemeanor case files for all of them are held by the Ellis County Clerk, so a single records office answers a misdemeanor case, setting, or bond no matter which court at law signed the warrant. One practical wrinkle worth knowing: the three courts share a single Criminal Misdemeanor records line, so the phone number repeats across the rows by design.

Because all three courts at law file through the one Ellis County Clerk on the first floor at 109 S. Jackson, a single misdemeanor records office answers for every warrant in this table — you do not need a different lookup for each court.

Ellis County Justice of the Peace Courts 4 precincts · Class C

Ellis County draws four Justice of the Peace precincts, each a single-judge court seated in a different corner of the county — there are no multi-place precincts here, so a precinct number maps to exactly one judge. JP courts hear Class C (fine-only) misdemeanors filed at the county level and issue a capias pro fine warrant when a fine or court cost goes unpaid after judgment. Because each precinct keeps its own office and counter, match the precinct number on your citation to the right row.

A JP warrant is fine-only, which changes the whole exit strategy: instead of posting a jail-release bond you satisfy the balance, set up a payment plan, or ask for an ability-to-pay hearing under Chapter 45 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. That mechanism is identical across all four precincts and is laid out in the how to clear section, so it is not repeated per row. What the table tracks instead is geography and phone, because the precincts are genuinely spread out — Precinct 1 works out of Waxahachie, while Precincts 2, 3, and 4 sit toward the Hwy 287 corridor and the Ennis, Midlothian, and Red Oak sides of the county. One caution: a few third-party directories label the Waxahachie precinct seats as “JP Court I” and “JP Court II”; those are mislabels for the single-place precinct courts, not two places inside one precinct.

Each precinct runs its own case lookup and front counter, so confirm a JP warrant with the precinct printed on your citation, then clear it on the fine-only path under how to clear an Ellis County warrant.

Municipal courts in Ellis County city courts · Class C

The cities inside Ellis County — from the county seat at Waxahachie out to Ennis, Midlothian, and the smaller towns — each operate their own municipal court for Class C and traffic citations, issuing alias and capias pro fine warrants when a city case stalls. A city warrant lives entirely outside the county system: the town whose officer wrote the ticket is the town that holds and clears it. Pick the city named on your citation below.

City warrants run on the same fine-only logic as the JP courts: most are alias warrants for a missed pre-judgment setting or capias pro fine warrants for an unpaid post-judgment fine, and you clear them by resolving the case, paying, arranging installments, or asking for an ability-to-pay hearing under Chapter 45 — the route detailed under how to clear an Ellis County warrant. The catch is that a municipal court is bound to its city: Waxahachie's court cannot touch an Ennis ticket, and neither one is the county courthouse on S. Jackson Street. So go straight to the page for the city that issued your citation:

Ellis County clerks & Sheriff

No matter which court signed your warrant, the case file sits with a clerk and the muscle behind it is the Sheriff. In Ellis County the District Clerk keeps the felony (district court) records, the County Clerk keeps the misdemeanor (county court at law) records, and the Sheriff's Office serves warrants countywide and runs both the jail and the public records search.

Ellis County District Clerk (felony records)

The Ellis County District Clerk, 109 S. Jackson St., 2nd Floor, Waxahachie, TX 75165, maintains the records for the 40th and 443rd District Courts, which try felony cases and issue felony arrest and bench warrants. Main line (972) 825-5091.

Ellis County Clerk (Class A / B misdemeanor records)

The Ellis County Clerk, 109 S. Jackson St., 1st Floor, Waxahachie, TX 75165, holds the records for the three county courts at law — the Class A and B misdemeanors and the warrants tied to them — and the county's recorded official public records. Criminal Misdemeanor division (972) 825-5070; recorded documents view at public.lgsonlinesolutions.com.

Ellis County Sheriff (enforcement)

The Ellis County Sheriff's Office, 300 S. Jackson St., Waxahachie, TX 75165, serves and enforces warrants across the county. Non-emergency (972) 825-4901; website elliscountysheriff.com.

Wayne McCollum Detention Center (booking)

If you are arrested or surrender on a county-level (misdemeanor or felony) warrant, booking and bond run through the Wayne McCollum Detention Center, 300 S. Jackson St., Waxahachie, TX 75165, the Ellis County jail on the Sheriff's campus. Inmate status / bond information (972) 825-4931. City (municipal) and JP Class C warrants are usually handled at the issuing court rather than the county jail.

Online records search

Ellis County's County Clerk / official public records run through LGS Online Solutions at public.lgsonlinesolutions.com/ors.html (see the county's “New Online Records Search Information” and “Official Public Records” pages). For District Clerk felony case lookups, confirm the current judicial-records portal directly with the District Clerk's office.

How to check for an Ellis County warrant

You can look for an Ellis County warrant through the county's public records tools or, far more discreetly, by having a lawyer confirm it for you. The LGS Online Records Search, the two clerks, and the Sheriff's Office are the official channels; a confidential attorney check keeps your name off the enforcement radar while you find out.

The cleanest starting point is the county's LGS Online Records Search at public.lgsonlinesolutions.com, which surfaces County Clerk and official public records. For a felony case, the District Clerk's office is the authoritative source; for a Class A or B misdemeanor, the County Clerk. If your matter is a city ticket, skip the county entirely and check the municipal court in the town that wrote it — each of the city courts above keeps its own lookup. The honest caveat is that no public search reliably lists every active warrant, and a trip to the clerk's counter can end in handcuffs if a warrant is live, so the safest move is to have a defense lawyer verify it quietly first. Our guide on how to find out if you have a warrant walks each option in order.

How to clear an Ellis County warrant

Clearing an Ellis County warrant comes down to four moves: name the issuing court, confirm the charge and bond, pick a path with a lawyer, then appear on the set date with the bond posted or the case resolved. Handled through counsel, a warrant that would otherwise mean a roadside arrest usually becomes a scheduled, same-day surrender at the Waxahachie jail.

1. Name the issuing court. Decide whether the warrant came from a city municipal court, a JP precinct, one of the three county courts at law, or the 40th or 443rd District Court — that single fact fixes the procedure and the clerk you will deal with.
2. Confirm the charge, bond, and any hold. Pull the underlying case or citation, find out the bond amount already set, and check whether a hold (another county, a probation matter) blocks a routine bond.
3. Pick a path with a lawyer. Depending on the warrant type, that means posting a bond for a court setting, filing a motion to recall, or paying out / resolving a fine-only case — each fits a different tier above.
4. Appear with the bond or resolution in place. Show up at the correct Ellis County court — or surrender at the Wayne McCollum Detention Center — with bond posted or the matter resolved, so the court recalls the warrant and the case moves forward.

For the full walk-through, see how to lift a warrant and weigh your options in bond vs. surrender.

How a lawyer helps in Ellis County

An Ellis County defense lawyer can confirm the warrant, name the issuing court, line up a walk-through bond where one is available, file a motion to recall, and stand with you to resolve the underlying case. The aim is the same every time: trade a surprise arrest for a planned, controlled appearance.

L and L Law Group is a Frisco criminal-defense firm led by Co-Founding Partners Reggie London and Njeri London, and the firm takes warrant matters in the Ellis County courts — Waxahachie, Ennis, Midlothian, Red Oak, the four JP precincts, and the district and county courts at the S. Jackson Street complex. When you are ready, the firm can verify the warrant, project the likely bond, line up release ahead of the booking at the Wayne McCollum Detention Center, and appear at the courthouse with you. Learn more about the L&L Law Group team, or read about this resource.

Related

Ellis County warrant FAQ

This page is general legal information about Texas law, not legal advice for your specific situation. Statutes and court procedures change; verify current requirements with the relevant court or a licensed Texas attorney. Last reviewed June 22, 2026.