§ 86-291 — Interception; court order

Nebraska § 86-291

• Jurisdiction: Nebraska
• Ch. 86: Telecommunications and Technology

Text

The Attorney General or any county attorney may make application to any district court of this state for an order authorizing or approving the interception of wire, electronic, or oral communications, and such court may grant, subject to sections 86-271 to 86-295 , an order authorizing or approving the interception of wire, electronic, or oral communications by law enforcement officers having responsibility for the investigation of the offense as to which application is made, when such interception may provide or has provided evidence of the commission of the offense of murder, kidnapping, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing in narcotic or other dangerous drugs, labor trafficking or sex trafficking, labor trafficking of a minor or sex trafficking of a minor, sexual assault of a child or a vulnerable adult, visual depiction or possessing a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct of a child, or child enticement by means of a computer, or any conspiracy to commit any such offense.
At the same time a county attorney first makes application to the district court for an initial order authorizing or approving the interception of wire, electronic, or oral communications, the county attorney shall submit the application to the Attorney General or his or her designated deputy or assistant. Within twenty-four hours of receipt by the office of the Attorney General of the application from the county attorney, the Attorney General or his or her designated deputy or assistant, as the case may be, shall state to the district court where the order is sought his or her recommendation as to whether the order should be granted. The court shall not issue the order until it has received the recommendation or until seventy-two hours after receipt of the application from the county attorney, whichever is sooner, unless the court finds exigent circumstances existing which necessitate the immediate issuance of the order. The court may issue the order and disregard the recommendation of the Attorney General or his or her designated deputy or assistant.

Legislative History

Source: Laws 1969, c. 854, § 3, p. 3213; Laws 1971, LB 294, § 1; Laws 1988, LB 899, § 3; R.S.1943, (1999), § 86-703; Laws 2002, LB 1105, § 153; Laws 2006, LB 1113, § 53; Laws 2019, LB519, § 17. Annotations: The requirement that the submissions of applications for intercept to the Attorney General and the court occur "[a]t the same time" necessitates that the application be submitted to the Attorney General in close enough proximity to the submission to the court that the grounds upon which the application is based are equally applicable and the Attorney General could issue its recommendation with sufficient time so the court could timely consider it in making its determination. State v. Brye, 304 Neb. 498, 935 N.W.2d 438 (2019). In a gambling conviction based on evidence obtained by wiretap, court held that federal law preempts the field, but does not require "all possible" investigative techniques be tried before authorizing wiretap. State v. Kolosseus, 198 Neb. 404, 253 N.W.2d 157 (1977). A plea of nolo contendere waived right to test the statute's constitutionality. State v. Abramson, 197 Neb. 135, 247 N.W.2d 59 (1976). Nebraska statutory scheme (recodified in 2002 as sections 86-271 to 86-2,115) with respect to wiretaps does not prevent the involvement of federal officers in state wiretap authorizations. United States v. Van Horn, 579 F.Supp. 804 (D. Neb. 1984).