District Court (Fourth District) Criminal registers of actions, 1889-1895.

This series documents the individual criminal cases tried by the Fourth District Court. Actions taken in each case are recorded on separate documents and then filed together to become the case file. As these documents enter the case file they are recorded in the Criminal Registers of Actions. Criminal cases, and their registers, were separated from civil cases in 1889. The actions recorded are for cases in the Fourth Judicial District as well as its predecessor, the Northern Division of the First Judicial District. The Fourth District Court was created in 1892 from the Northern Division of the First District Court. The far-flung First District Court was divided into two geographic divisions from 1880-1892; the Northern Division included Box Elder, Cache, Morgan, Rich, and Weber counties. Proceedings from throughout the several counties that made up the northern division typically were heard in Ogden, Weber County.

Registers function as a chronological list of the actions taken in eachcriminal cases. A register of actions can contain the following: attorney for plaintiff and defendant, name of the judge presiding over the case, petitions, complaint, summons, answers to summons, orders from the court, assignment of judges, exhibits, judgment, findings and conclusions, costs, decrees, requests by the attorneys for instructions to the jury, verdict, motions for cross complaints or new trials, amendments to previous answers, and disclaimers.