{"id":33501,"date":"2023-02-21T14:52:50","date_gmt":"2023-02-21T20:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=33501"},"modified":"2023-02-24T17:28:18","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T23:28:18","slug":"chief-justice-notes-successes-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=33501","title":{"rendered":"Chief justice notes successes, challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nebraska Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Heavican delivered his State of the Judiciary address to lawmakers Feb. 21.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He began by noting the \u201cextraordinary measures\u201d taken to fill the approximately 1,600 vacant judicial positions across the state, as of July 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAlong with the new and partially implemented comprehensive salary study, we began giving hiring and referral bonuses as well as retention benefits,\u201d Heavican said. \u201cWe also upgraded our judicial branch education opportunities to improve skills and encourage advancement to leadership positions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Calling special attention to probation, Heavican said evidence-based practices and innovative programs have transformed probation administration in recent years, bringing national acclaim to the state.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In addition, he said, efficient and economical management of both adult and juvenile probation has allowed the Nebraska Supreme Court to return $35 million to the state general fund in the last two state budget cycles.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With those successes, however, Heavican noted that challenges remain \u2013 most notably in the area of mental health. The Legislature has increased provider reimbursement rates in recent years, he said, but the need to expand provider access remains, particularly 24-hour care facilities for the mentally ill. Currently, county jails are the default 24-hour facility, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI would also call your attention to the ongoing and long-standing problem of mental health competency determinations for criminal defendants to stand trial,\u201d Heavican said. \u201cThe Lincoln Regional Center currently has a six month backlog to perform such evaluations. This problem has festered for years and needs a resource supplement.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite that challenge, he said, the courts continue to innovate and expand the use of technology to serve the state and ensure equal access to justice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAccess to the courts in the 21st century means more than the courtroom door is unlocked,\u201d Heavican said. \u201cPlease be assured that Nebraska\u2019s judicial branch is always striving to find ways to do it better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nebraska Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Heavican delivered his State of the Judiciary address to lawmakers Feb. 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33505,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ceremonies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/SOJ_2-21-23a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33501"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33596,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33501\/revisions\/33596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}