§ 25-2301.02.Application; objection; hearing; appeal.

Section 25-2301.02 is the engine behind Nebraska’s in forma pauperis process. The default rule favors the applicant: an application to proceed without prepaying fees, costs, or security must be granted unless someone objects on one of two specific grounds — that the applicant has sufficient funds to pay, or that the applicant is asserting legal positions that are frivolous or malicious.

That objection carries its own deadline and procedure. It must come within thirty days after the application is filed, unless the objection alleges the application itself was fraudulent, in which case there is no deadline. Either the court, on its own motion, or any interested person can raise the objection, but the motion must specifically state the grounds. An evidentiary hearing follows automatically, unless the court itself raises the objection on frivolous-or-malicious grounds, in which case the court may instead issue a written statement of its reasons, findings, and conclusions, which becomes part of the case record.

Losing the objection fight does not end the case. If the court sustains an objection, the applicant gets thirty days from the ruling, or from the written statement, to proceed with the case or appeal by paying the required fees, costs, or security — and that thirty-day window holds even if a statute of limitations or an appeal deadline would otherwise have expired in the meantime. One constitutional guardrail applies throughout: a court may never deny in forma pauperis status on frivolous-or-malicious grounds if doing so would deny a criminal defendant his or her constitutional right to appeal a felony conviction.

If an application is denied and the applicant appeals that denial, the section gives the appellant a way to build the record: an application for a transcript of the in forma pauperis hearing, ordered prepared at the county’s expense. The appellate court then reviews the denial de novo on the record, based on that transcript or on the trial court’s written statement, rather than deferring to the lower court’s judgment call.