MUNICIPAL COURT CASES
Between 2020 and 2024, the Bismarck Municipal Court handled nearly 87,000 new cases, according to statewide caseload figures provided by Harris via Odyssey, the state court system's case management software. The court also saw a 40% caseload increase in 2024, with more than 22,600 cases over 2023's total.
In North Dakota , municipal courts don't handle juvenile, civil, probate or felony cases — those go to state district court. Municipal courts do handle traffic offenses including parking violations, city ordinance violations, and lower-level criminal matters such as infractions and Class B misdemeanors, which carry up to 30 days in jail.
Harris said she isn't taking a position on why Bismarck's numbers are rising, but noted that the court's limited jurisdiction may contribute to the volume.
Bismarck Municipal Court Judge Amanda Harris says the local court sees more cases than any similar court in the state, and she is advocating for changes that she believes will make court operations smoother.
Bismarck's caseload far exceeds that of other large cities in the state, Harris said. The figures also don't include a growing number of municipal arrest warrants, order-to-show-cause hearings, restitution orders or parking tickets.
Those increases led Harris to seek more support for the clerk’s office — a request city commissioners granted by approving an additional full-time staff position in the 2026 budget.
It had been 10 years since the last staff addition — a half-time position — was approved, Harris said.
"And in 10 years of growth for the city of Bismarck , for the Clerk's Office and the amount and volume of paperwork they're filing, I mean, we're talking hundreds of thousands of documents a year, and the bulk of it is divided by three people, so it's a lot of work, and our staff just can't continue to maintain," she said.
Besides filing documents, Municipal Court Clerk Nicole Hanson and her deputies are the public face of the court, accepting in-person payments for parking and traffic citations, bonds and fines, and providing copies of court documents. Harris said the duties can be highly technical and require precision.
"So we've been working with technology to try to see what systems we can upgrade and implement to try to relieve the burden a little bit on the clerks," Harris said.
One of those technological advances, unveiled in 2024, is the ability to accept electronic payments for parking citations less than 30 days old. Similar technology is being developed by the state court system that would allow people to pay certain traffic tickets, Harris said.
"We're hoping like January, where we can actually have access to pay the tickets directly online," Harris said. "We're hoping to do that so that it will alleviate some of the case filings with the court. Because right now, our clerks, they process those citations, they file them into (state court software), and then they process the payments or the bonds, and it's a lot of work for the clerk, so we want to try to alleviate and have that accessibility for the public so that it's more convenient for the public to be able to pay their tickets in a timely manner."
While Harris looks forward to technology potentially increasing efficiency and decreasing the workload for the Clerk's Office, she's also interested in looking at methods that might help slow the growing numbers of cases, especially relating to repeat offenders.
Court days routinely see representatives from a number of local service providers in the courtroom, according to Harris, and in many cases people who meet certain criteria are given the choice between utilizing those services or sitting in jail.
Outlining the process, Harris explained: "People are signing releases of information so we can communicate with the agency to see, 'Okay, did you comply with your eval? Did you successfully complete the treatment that was recommended? Did you apply for the housing program? You know? Did you do this? Did you do that?' And if they didn't, they have to come back to court and show why they did not complete that, or they're facing their jail time.
"We actually do have a mission statement in the court, and it's doing justice and being resourceful and using our resources," Harris continued. "Every case is different, but if we can get to that behavior modification in our community, hopefully caseloads will start leveling off or reducing. That's why I try to get the clerks to say, 'Just stick with me.' I know it's a ton of work. I know you can't handle it, but I'm hoping that we'll see the fruits of this work in a year or two and see those case numbers leveling off or decreasing."
©2025 The Bismarck Tribune, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
