The newly developed Juvenile Justice Reform Update is now available (click here). The update, produced by the Administrative Office of the Courts & Probation-Juvenile Services Division, was created to update the juvenile justice community on the implementation of LB 670 passed in 2018 and the work...

The Court Improvement Project (CIP) held its annual webinar on February 6, 2019, outlining bills related to juvenile justice and child welfare submitted by state senators for the 2019 legislative session. CIP project specialists, Mary Ann Harvey and Mary Pat Coe tracked and identified bills of...

Thunderbeat reporter Brooke Jones (January 31, 2019) Junior Taegan Jacobs won first place in the student reporter contest at the annual Nebraska State Mock Trial Competition. She made history by being the first student journalist to win the award and was the first reporter from Bellevue West to...

The Court Improvement Project hosted the bi-annual meeting of the Supreme Court Commission on Children in the Courts at the Judicial Branch Education Facility in Lincoln on December 7, 2018. Judge Doug Johnson, Douglas County Separate Juvenile Court, and Judge Francie Riedmann, Nebraska Court of...

The 5th Judicial District Problem-Solving Court serving York, Hamilton, and Merrick Counties held graduation ceremonies on January 4, 2019, in York County and January 7, 2019, in Merrick County. For Problem-Solving Court graduates, these ceremonies mark the completion of an intensive program of...

The Information Technology Division of the Judicial Branch has created a new position of IT Support Supervisor. The branch’s first IT Support Supervisor, Shane Smith, will have an important role in the ongoing integration of technology support across the branch. As the Judicial Branch has grown...

The Judicial Branch Website experienced much activity in 2018 resulting in nearly 3.5 million pageviews on the main page. While the items and pages noted below aren’t necessarily the newest or biggest items hosted on the site, they are some of the most visited pages. It is no surprise that the...

Trial court judges have been hosting new state senators through a Judicial-Legislative Visit Program since 1999. For twenty years, the program has fulfilled its purpose of providing legislators a personal understanding of the daily duties and responsibilities of the trial court judge and judicial...

Jefferson County District Court Judge Vicky Johnson and County Judge Linda Bauer hosted Senator-elect Tom Brandt for a court visit in conjunction with the swearing-in ceremony of that county’s elected officials on January 3, 2019. The judges invited Senator-elect Brandt to learn more about the...

Judge Kale Burdick was the first of this year’s judges to host a senator through the Judicial-Legislative Visit Program inviting Senator-elect Tim Gragert to attend court in O’Neill in mid-December. Judge Burdick had not met the future senator other than when Gragert was campaigning. After a busy...