Manatee County Today's Hearings
The Clerk's Today's Hearings page is the official Manatee County docket tool. The page loads with every scheduled hearing for the current day, broken into blocks for each judge, time, and courtroom. The interface lets you filter by judge and case type, change the view to Today, Week, or Month, and export results to Excel. New Cases Filed Today is a separate tab and lists cases recorded by the Clerk in the past 24 hours.
Most users come to the docket page for one of three reasons. The first is to confirm a hearing time and courtroom before driving to the Judicial Center. The second is to check whether a case shows up on the docket at all, which is a fast way to spot a continuance or a sealed setting. The third is to track a judge's day, week, or month at a glance.
The Today's Hearings page exposes the live docket interface.
Hearing blocks list judge, time, courtroom, and case count, with each underlying case shown on its own row.
Judge Filters on the Manatee County Court Docket
The judge filter on the Today's Hearings page lists every active Manatee County judge plus several quasi-judicial roles. The list pulls from the same database the Twelfth Judicial Circuit uses to assign divisions. You can pick one judge to limit the hearing list, or leave it on "All Judges" to see the full schedule.
Below is the list of judges and roles captured from the docket filter. Each judge is assigned to a division, and the division decides what kind of case they hear. Family Mediator and Teen Court are not judges, but they appear in the filter because they hold hearings on the same calendar.
- Frederick Mercurio - Circuit Criminal Felony Division III
- Stephen Whyte - Circuit Civil Division D
- Teri Dees - Circuit Criminal Felony Division V
- Jacqueline Steele, D. Felix, Charles Sniffen - Circuit Civil and Felony
- Diana Moreland - Probate & Guardianship (Chief Judge)
- Renee Inman, Heather Doyle - County Civil
- Edward Nicholas, Kennedy Legler - Family
- Gilbert Smith Jr., Susan Maulucci - Juvenile
- Stephen Walker - Problem Solving Court Division P
- Family Mediator, Teen Court - quasi-judicial slots
Case Type Filters on the Manatee County Court Docket
The case-type filter narrows the docket to a single category. The dropdown matches the case types in the main court records search. Picking Felony returns only Circuit Criminal hearings. Picking Domestic Relations returns family cases. Picking Probate returns probate and guardianship hearings.
| Filter | What It Pulls |
|---|---|
| Felony | Circuit Court criminal felony hearings; CF case-type code. |
| Misdemeanor | County Court criminal misdemeanor hearings; MM case-type code. |
| Traffic Infractions | County Court traffic hearings and contested citations. |
| Criminal Traffic | DUI, driving while license suspended, and similar; routed to criminal docket. |
| Circuit Civil | Civil cases over $50,000 including foreclosure and personal injury. |
| County Civil | Cases between $8,000 and $50,000; most evictions. |
| Small Claims | Low-dollar civil disputes. |
| Domestic Relations | Divorce, custody, support, paternity, injunctions. |
| Probate / Guardianship | Estates, wills, guardianship, competency, involuntary hospitalization. |
| Juvenile Delinquency / Dependency | Hearings visible in the filter; case file is restricted. |
| Teen Court / Teen Court Too / Teen Court Domestic Battery | Local diversion docket slots. |
Fields on a Manatee County Court Docket Entry
Each row on the Today's Hearings page lists what you need to find a hearing and verify a case. The Clerk groups hearings into blocks. A block names the judge, the time, the date, the courtroom, and the case count. Each case in the block has its own row with the case number and the attorney where listed.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Judge | Presiding judge for the block; matches the Twelfth Circuit assignment list. |
| Case Type | Felony, Misdemeanor, Civil, Probate, and other tags. |
| Time | Start time of the hearing block. |
| Date | Calendar date of the hearing block. |
| Location / Courtroom | Courtroom number such as Courtroom 8-A at the Judicial Center. |
| Case Count | Total number of cases stacked under the same judge, time, and courtroom. |
| Case Number | Individual case number per row inside the block. |
| Attorney | Name of counsel where the Clerk has recorded it. |
| Export to Excel | Action that downloads the filtered result to a spreadsheet. |
Reading Manatee County Hearing Results
A typical felony docket block reads like a short paragraph of plain data. On 2026-05-19 the Today's Hearings page showed a block for Judge Frederick Mercurio at 08:30 a.m. on 05/07/2026 in Courtroom 8-A with a case count of 80. Each of those 80 cases had its own row underneath. The judge calls the calendar in case-number order, with attorneys present for each defendant.
Civil and family blocks tend to be smaller, sometimes only a few cases at a time, because each motion needs more time than a quick criminal calendar call. Probate hearings often run shorter and are scheduled for short blocks of unopposed orders.
You can sort the result list. Clickable column headers let you sort by case number, party name, status, or file date in either direction. The page-size dropdown sets how many results show before pagination kicks in.
Court Docket vs Court Case File
A docket entry is not the full case file. The hearing list shows when a case is set, but does not show the underlying pleadings or rulings. To open the full file you click the case number and use the court records search docket view. That page lists every filing in date order. A locked filing means the Clerk emails a copy after a manual review. A confidential filing is sealed.
The Clerk's New Cases Filed Today list is a separate page that posts cases recorded in the past 24 hours. It is useful for reporters and watchdogs but does not show hearing times. The hearing list is the right tool for "what is on the docket today."
Missing or Changed Manatee County Hearings
If a hearing does not show up on the docket, the case may have been continued, sealed, or removed from the calendar that day. Continuances happen often in busy felony divisions. Sealed cases do not appear on the public docket at all. Hurricane closures, holiday schedules, and judge reassignments can also shift a calendar.
Call the assigned judicial assistant or the Clerk at (941) 749-1800 if you cannot find a case that you expect to see. The Clerk's Public Access and Research office on the main floor of the Historic Courthouse can help walk-in users. A criminal defendant who misses a hearing risks a bench warrant or capias, so confirming the date and courtroom is worth the time.
Note: A missed criminal hearing can trigger a capias under Florida law, plus bond forfeiture and additional charges, so always confirm hearing time before the date.
Tips for Reading the Manatee County Docket
The Today's Hearings tool also lets you change page size from 25 up to 250 results per page. A larger page size is faster for journalists and watchdogs pulling a full daily list. Smaller page sizes are easier on phone screens. The Clear Filter button resets every filter at once.
The export to Excel link downloads the same data shown on screen, with the case-number, party-name, judge, and time columns. Keep in mind that the data is informational and not an authoritative legal record under the Clerk's standard disclaimer. The court itself can adjust the docket up to the time of the hearing, so even a Today's Hearings export is a snapshot rather than a final schedule.