LB50 LB50
2023 2023
LEGISLATIVE BILL 50
Approved by the Governor June 6, 2023
Introduced by Wayne, 13; Geist, 25; Holdcroft, 36; DeKay, 40; Ibach, 44.
A BILL FOR AN ACT relating to the administration of justice; to amend sections
24-1302, 27-902, 28-518, 29-2221, 29-2263, 29-2269, 29-2281, 29-2315.02,
29-2318, 29-3001, 43-279, 43-280, 43-4505, 50-434, 69-2426, 69-2432,
71-1902, 71-5661, 71-5662, 71-5663, 71-5665, 71-5666, 71-5669.01, 81-1850,
83-1,110, and 83-1,127, Reissue Revised Statutes of Nebraska, and sections
27-803, 28-470, 29-2252, 29-2261, 29-2262, 38-2136, 43-2,108, 43-1311.03,
43-4502, 43-4504, 43-4508, 43-4510, 43-4511.01, 43-4514, 71-5668, 83-109,
83-173, 83-1,100.02, 83-1,111, 83-1,114, 83-1,122.01, 83-1,125.01,
83-1,135, and 83-1,135.02, Revised Statutes Cumulative Supplement, 2022;
to change provisions regarding problem solving courts and restate legislative intent regarding appropriations; to create pilot programs relating to virtual behavioral health services, probation, and parole; to change and provide duties for courts, the State Court Administrator, the probation administrator, the Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, the Division of Parole Supervision, the Board of Parole,
the Department of Correctional Services, the Director of Correctional Services, and the Board of Pardons; to change provisions of the Nebraska Evidence Rules relating to hearsay and self-authenticating items of
evidence; to change provisions relating to immunity for administration of
naloxone, theft, the habitual criminal enhancement, presentence investigation reports and related materials, set asides, restitution,
appointment of counsel in certain proceedings, and actions for postconviction relief; to provide for access to certain information relating to probationers, juveniles, and parolees to law enforcement agencies; to create the Nebraska Sentencing Reform Task Force; to change provisions relating to the duty of confidentiality for certain mental health practitioners; to provide for answers of no contest in adjudication hearings under the Nebraska Juvenile Code; to change provisions relating to a written independent living transition proposal as prescribed; to change provisions of the Young Adult Bridge to Independence Act relating to legislative intent, eligibility, extended services and support, court appointed representation, and powers and duties of the Department of
Health and Human Services; to terminate the Committee on Justice Reinvestment Oversight; to require dissemination of information regarding suicide prevention to purchasers of firearms and require suicide prevention training in handgun training and safety courses; to change provisions of the Rural Health Systems and Professional Incentive Act; to change provisions relating to notification of crime victims; to change provisions relating to parole and provide for geriatric parole and streamlined parole contracts; to change and provide definitions; to provide for applicability; to require the Department of Correctional Services to provide employees with protective vests; to harmonize provisions; and to repeal the original sections.
Be it enacted by the people of the State of Nebraska,
Section 1. Section 24-1302, Reissue Revised Statutes of Nebraska, is amended to read:
24-1302 (1) For purposes of this section, problem solving court means a drug, veterans, mental health, driving under the influence, reentry, young adult, or other problem solving court.
(2) A district, county, or juvenile court may establish a problem solving court, subject to the Supreme Court's rules. A problem solving court shall function within the existing structure of the court system. The goals of a problem solving court shall be consistent with any relevant standards adopted by the United States Department of Justice and the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, as such standards existed on January 1, 2023.
(3) An individual may participate in a problem solving court as a condition of probation, as a sentence imposed by a court, or as otherwise provided by the Supreme Court's rules.
(4) Problem (1) Drug, veterans, mental health, driving under the influence, reentry, and other problem solving courts shall be subject to rules which shall be promulgated by the Supreme Court for procedures to be implemented in the administration of such courts.
(5) (2) It is the intent of the Legislature that funds be appropriated separately to the Supreme Court such that each judicial district may operate at
least one drug, veterans, mental health, driving under the influence, reentry,
and young adult problem solving court. The State Court Administrator shall ensure that each judicial district has at least one of such courts by January
1, 2024 for each of the problem solving courts to carry out this section and section 24-1301.
(6) The State Court Administrator shall track and evaluate outcomes of
problem solving courts. On or before June 1, 2024, and on or before each June 1
thereafter, the State Court Administrator shall electronically submit a report
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to the Legislature regarding the impact of problem solving courts on recidivism rates in the state. The report shall also include rates of return to court and program completion. The report shall identify judicial districts that are underserved by problem solving courts and what services or funding are needed to properly serve such districts.
Sec. 2. (1) The State Court Administrator shall create a pilot program to
utilize physical space and information technology resources within Nebraska courthouses to serve as points of access for virtual behavioral health services for court-involved individuals.
(2) The pilot program shall be limited to a single probation district.
Such district shall be chosen by the State Court Administrator in consultation with the probation administrator.
(3) The purpose of the program is to provide access to safe, confidential,
and reliable behavioral health treatment via telehealth for individuals involved with the criminal justice system, either as defendants, probationers,
or victims in a criminal proceeding.
(4) On or before June 1, 2024, the State Court Administrator shall electronically submit a report to the Judiciary Committee of the Legislature regarding the pilot program.
Sec. 3. Section 27-803, Revised Statutes Cumulative Supplement, 2022, is amended to read:
27-803 Subject to the provisions of section 27-403, the following are not excluded by the hearsay rule, even though the declarant is available as a witness:
(1) A statement describing or explaining an event or condition, made while or immediately after the declarant perceived it;
(2) A statement relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition;
(3) A statement of the declarant's then existing state of mind, emotion,
sensation, or physical condition (such as intent, plan, motive, design, mental feeling, pain, and bodily health), but not including a statement of memory or
belief to prove the fact remembered or believed unless it relates to the execution, revocation, identification, or terms of declarant's will;
(4) Statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment and describing medical history, or past or present symptoms, pain, or sensations,
or the inception or general character of the cause or external source thereof insofar as reasonably pertinent to diagnosis or treatment;
(5) A memorandum or record concerning a matter about which a witness once had knowledge but now has insufficient recollection to enable him or her to
testify fully and accurately, shown to have been made or adopted by the witness when the matter was fresh in his or her memory and to reflect that knowledge correctly. If admitted, the memorandum or record may be read into evidence but may not itself be received as an exhibit unless offered by an adverse party;
(6)(a) A memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, or conditions, other than opinions or diagnoses, made at or near the time of such acts, events, or conditions, in the course of a regularly conducted activity, if it was the regular course of such activity to make such memorandum, report, record, or data compilation at the time of such act, event,
or condition, or within a reasonable time thereafter, as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness or by a certification that complies with subdivision (11) or (12) of section 27-902 or with a statute permitting certification, unless the source of information or method or circumstances of
preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness. The circumstances of the making of such memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, including lack of
personal knowledge by the entrant or maker, may be shown to affect its weight.
(b) A memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, or conditions, other than opinions or diagnoses, that was received or acquired in the regular course of business by an entity from another entity and has been incorporated into and kept in the regular course of
business of the receiving or acquiring entity; that the receiving or acquiring entity typically relies upon the accuracy of the contents of the memorandum,
report, record, or data compilation; and that the circumstances otherwise indicate the trustworthiness of the memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness. Subdivision (6)(b) of this section shall not apply in any criminal proceeding;
(7) Evidence that a matter is not included in the memoranda, reports,
records, or data compilations, in any form, kept in accordance with the provisions of subdivision (6) of this section to prove the nonoccurrence or
nonexistence of the matter, if the matter was of a kind of which a memorandum,
report, record, or data compilation was regularly made and preserved, unless the sources of information or other circumstances indicate a lack of
trustworthiness;
(8) Upon reasonable notice to the opposing party prior to trial, records,
reports, statements, or data compilations made by a public official or agency of facts required to be observed and recorded pursuant to a duty imposed by
law, unless the sources of information or the method or circumstances of the investigation are shown by the opposing party to indicate a lack of
trustworthiness;
(9) Records or data compilations, in any form, of births, fetal deaths,
deaths, or marriages, if the report thereof was made to a public office pursuant to requirements of law;
(10) To prove the absence of a record, report, statement, or data
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compilation, in any form, or the nonoccurrence or nonexistence of a matter of
which a record, report, statement, or data compilation, in any form, was regularly made and preserved by a public office or agency, evidence in the form of a certification in accordance with section 27-902, or testimony, that diligent search failed to disclose the record, report, statement, or data compilation or entry;
(11) Statements of births, marriages, divorces, deaths, legitimacy,
ancestry, relationship by blood or marriage, or other similar facts of personal or family history, contained in a regularly kept record of a religious organization;
(12) Statements of fact contained in a certificate that the maker performed a marriage or other ceremony or administered a sacrament, made by a member of the clergy, public official, or other person authorized by the rules or practices of a religious organization or by law to perform the act certified, and purporting to have been issued at the time of the act or within
a reasonable time thereafter;
(13) Statements of births, marriages, divorces, deaths, legitimacy,
ancestry, relationship by blood or marriage, or other similar facts of personal or family history contained in family Bibles, genealogies, charts, engravings on rings, inscriptions on family portraits, engravings on urns, crypts, or tombstones or the like;
(14) The record of a document purporting to establish or affect an
interest in property, as proof of the content of the original recorded document and its execution and delivery by each person by whom it purports to have been executed, if the record is a record of a public office and an applicable statute authorized the recording of documents of that kind in that office;
(15) A statement contained in a document purporting to establish or affect an interest in property if the matter stated was relevant to the purpose of the document, unless dealings with the property since the document was made have been inconsistent with the truth of the statement or the purport of the document;
(16) Statements in a document in existence thirty years or more whose authenticity is established;
(17) Market quotations, tabulations, lists, directories, or other published compilations, generally used and relied upon by the public or by persons in particular occupations;
(18) Statements contained in published treatises, periodicals, or pamphlets on a subject of history, medicine, or other science or art,
established as a reliable authority by the testimony or admission of the witness or by other expert testimony or by judicial notice, to the extent called to the attention of an expert witness upon cross-examination or relied upon by the expert witness in direct examination. If admitted, the statements may be read into evidence but may not be received as exhibits;
(19) Reputation among members of his or her family by blood, adoption, or marriage, or among his or her associates, or in the community, concerning a person's birth, adoption, marriage, divorce, death, legitimacy, relationship by
blood, adoption, or marriage, ancestry, or other similar fact of his or her personal or family history;
(20) Reputation in a community, arising before the controversy, as to
boundaries of or customs affecting lands in the community, and reputation as to events of general history important to the community or state or nation in
which located;
(21) Reputation of a person's character among his or her associates or in the community;
(22) Evidence of a final judgment, entered after a trial or upon a plea of
guilty (but not upon a plea of nolo contendere), adjudging a person guilty of a crime punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year, to prove any fact essential to sustain the judgment, but not including, when offered by the government in a criminal prosecution for purposes other than impeachment,
judgments against a person other than the accused. The pendency of an appeal may be shown but does not affect admissibility;
(23) Judgments as proof of matters of personal, family, or general history, or boundaries, essential to the judgment, if the same would be
provable by evidence of reputation; and
(24) A statement not specifically covered by any of the foregoing exceptions but having equivalent circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness,
if the court determines that (a) the statement is offered as evidence of a material fact, (b) the statement is more probative on the point for which it is offered than any other evidence which the proponent can procure through reasonable efforts, and (c) the general purposes of these rules and the interests of justice will best be served by admission of the statement into evidence. A statement may not be admitted under this exception unless the proponent of it makes known to the adverse party, sufficiently in advance of
the trial or hearing to provide the adverse party with a fair opportunity to
prepare to meet it, his or her intention to offer the statement and the particulars of it, including the name and address of the declarant.
Sec. 4. Section 27-902, Reissue Revised Statutes of Nebraska, is amended to read:
27-902 Extrinsic evidence of authenticity as a condition precedent to
admissibility is not required with respect to the following:
(1) A document bearing a seal purporting to be that of the United States,
or of any state, district, commonwealth, territory, or insular possession thereof, or the Panama Canal Zone or the Trust Territory of the Pacific
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Islands, or of a political subdivision, department, officer, or agency thereof,
and a signature purporting to be an attestation or execution;
(2) A document purporting to bear the signature in his or her official capacity of an officer or employee of any entity included in subdivision (1) of this section, having no seal, if a public officer having a seal and having official duties in the district or political subdivision of the officer or
employee certifies under seal that the signer has the official capacity and that the signature is genuine;
(3) A document purporting to be executed or attested in his or her official capacity by a person authorized by the laws of a foreign country to
make the execution or attestation, and accompanied by a final certification as
to the genuineness of the signature and official position (a) of the executing or attesting person, or (b) of any foreign official whose certificate of
genuineness of signature and official position relates to the execution or
attestation or is in a chain of certificates of genuineness of signature and official position relating to the execution or attestation. A final certification may be made by a secretary of embassy or legation, consul general, consul, vice consul, or consular agent of the United States, or a diplomatic or consular official of the foreign country assigned or accredited to the United States. If reasonable opportunity has been given to all parties to investigate the authenticity and accuracy of official documents, the judge may, for good cause shown, order that they be treated as presumptively authentic without final certification or permit them to be evidenced by an attested summary with or without final certification;
(4) A copy of an official record or report or entry therein, or of a document authorized by law to be recorded or filed and actually recorded or
filed