The Justice Court Dockets (Wood Series 22) are primarily civil cases. There are some criminal cases recorded, without any obvious effort to note them as distinct from civil cases. The overwhelming amount of material deals with a plaintiff taking the defendant to court for debts. This is especially true of the earlier records. The later records (those after 1950) contain more violations relating to the automobile. Examples of this type may be: driving while intoxicated, failure to stop at stop signs, driving without a license, driving without registration on vehicle, and speeding. Other types of crimes recurring throughout the dockets are paternity suits, abandonment, illegal trapping and shooting of animals, assault and battery, thievery, indecent exposure, swearing in public, public intoxication, selling alcohol to minors, illegally producing alcohol, and destruction of property.
The Municipal Court Dockets (Wood Series 23) are divided into three subgroups. Civil cases relate to those volumes that record action taken between individuals or corporations for debts due. Criminal cases are divided into two categories. Some criminal cases relate to violations of state statutes and are called state criminal cases. The other type of criminal case involves a violation of a city ordinance and is known as a city criminal case. Civil cases span the years 1887-1961, state criminal cases, 1900-1962, and city criminal cases, the years 1896-1934.
Typical crimes found in state criminal cases may include driving without registering the vehicle, assault and battery, breaking and entering, manufacturing food items that do not comply with state regulations (manufacturing cheese with too high water content in it), fornication without being married, thievery, destruction of property, abandonment, vagrancy, and writing checks without sufficient funds.
Violation of city ordinances may include public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, public obscenities, speeding, driving while intoxicated, and other automobile related offenses.
There is one docket in the Justice Court series labelled “Marathon County.” Part of the City of Marshfield lies in Marathon County. This volume records both civil cases (the plaintiff in most cases being Bonded Collections of Marshfield, Inc.--a collection agency), and city criminal cases against the city ordinances of Spencer, Wisconsin. Many pages in this volume register just the date, and when the summons is issued returnable.
Justice court dockets and municipal court dockets consistently record the same types of information, which includes names of plaintiff and defendant, date, name of the judge and courts, names of the attorneys involved, charges filed (or the city ordinance which is violated), whether a warrant is issued and to whom issued, date of the warrant return, judgment or sentence, names of witnesses, verdicts, fines levied, and court costs.
Both series are arranged chronologically. The earlier volumes of the two series often have an index in the beginning or the end of the volume, which is an alphabetical listing of the defendants.
