Nebraska County Court Information

The Nebraska court system has four-levels comprised of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, the District Court, and the County Court. There is one county court, with limited jurisdiction, in each of the 93 counties in the state.

Judicial Rights of the Nebraska County Court

The laws of the state dictate the jurisdiction of the Nebraska County Court. By these laws, the court has exclusive judicial rights in probate matters, adoptions, cases involving breaches of a city or village ordinance, and eminent domain proceedings. The county court shares the rights of jurisdiction in civil cases where the amount of the claim is $51,000 or less. It is also empowered to preside over criminal proceedings that are categorized under misdemeanors or infractions, matters related to guardianship and conservatorship, paternity suits, and some kinds of domestic relations cases like divorce proceedings.

Preliminary hearings are conducted in the county courts to determine if there is substantial evidence to establish a probable cause in a felony case. If there exists a reasonable belief, substantiated by tangible facts, that a crime has been committed and that the person on whom charges have been leveled is responsible, the defendant has to face trial in a district court.

Nebraska County Small Claims

The small claims division of the Nebraska county courts presides over all small claims cases that are filed within the court system. This division deals with minor disputes involving minimum legal procedures. Lawyers may not even participate in the proceedings. These courts have limited jurisdiction rights over civil (non-criminal) cases involving amounts of money owed, issues concerning returning personal property, and damage to property. You may not file more than two claims in a calendar week and no more than ten claims within a calendar year in the Small Claims Court.

Judges

The judges of the Nebraska county courts, except for the counties of Douglas, Lancaster, and Sarpy, exercise the same duties as the judges in the juvenile courts. In all the other counties, juvenile matters are handled by the county courts.

Appeals originating from the county courts are heard at the district courts. Some probate and juvenile case appeals are made directly to the Court of Appeals.

Accessing Nebraska County Court Records

Nebraska County Court case information and records can be easily accessed online, courtesy of the exhaustive JUSTICE system. The system currently stocks more than 4 million case records.

A record search result at the JUSTICE system contains all the information that is deemed to be made public. This includes, but is not restricted to, the basic details of a case like the date and result of the trial, a brief summary of the case, and the judge; details about the contending parties (both the plaintiff and the defendant) and the names of the associated attorneys; the cost of the case including the fees related to the case; and a register of actions that lists all that has been done up to, during, and after a case.

A search is easy to perform. You just need to have any one of these data: the name of one of the contending parties who is not a witness; the name of the county where the case was registered; a generalized type of the case; the name of the judge who presided over the case; or the name of an attorney who was involved in the case.

This is a subscription-based system; you have to subscribe at http://www.nebraska.gov/subscriber/. You will have to pay one dollar to view the details of a single case.

Contact Information

Visit http://www.supremecourt.ne.gov/county-court/county-judges-addr.shtml?sub4 for contact information on the judges of the Nebraska county courts. The correspondence information on the clerk magistrates is found at http://www.supremecourt.ne.gov/county-court/Coun-clerkmag-addr.shtml?sub4.

The Nebraska county courts may have limited judicial rights. They may not even possess the rights to try several types of cases. But in their limited capacities, these courts ensure that justice is dispensed to one and all and that all judicial procedures are fair and transparent.