Any criminal case pending in either the county court or the district court in any county having a population of four thousand or less and not having adequate facilities for the trial of jury cases acceptable to the county and district judges may be tried in any adjoining county with the same effect as if tried in the county where the offense was committed.
§ 25-412.01.Criminal cases; counties of 4,000 population or less; inadequate facilities; change of venue.
Article 4: Venue · Last amended 1975 · Last verified July 22, 2026
In one sentenceSection 25-412.01 lets a criminal case pending in a small county — one with 4,000 or fewer people and no adequate jury trial facilities acceptable to the county and district judges — be tried in an adjoining county, with the same legal effect as if it had been tried where the offense occurred.
Full Text of § 25-412.01
Source
Laws 1975, LB 97, § 1; R.S.1943, (1985), § 24-901.
Plain-English Summary
This site focuses on civil procedure, but section 25-412.01 sits inside the venue article because it is the criminal counterpart to the civil rule that immediately follows it, section 25-412.02, and the two work together with sections 25-412.03 and 25-412.04 as a package addressing small-county trial capacity.
The section addresses a practical problem: a county with 4,000 people or fewer may not have a courthouse equipped for jury trials, or the county and district judges may find the existing facilities unacceptable. Rather than forcing trials into inadequate space, section 25-412.01 allows a criminal case pending in either the county court or the district court of such a county to be tried in an adjoining county instead.
Trying the case in the adjoining county carries the same legal effect as if the trial had happened in the county where the offense was committed. The case does not need to be recharacterized as having occurred somewhere else; the outcome is treated as valid regardless of which adjoining courthouse hosted the trial.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this section apply to civil cases?
No. Section 25-412.01 applies to criminal cases; its civil counterpart, using the same population and facilities standard, is section 25-412.02.
What population threshold triggers this section?
It applies to counties with a population of 4,000 or less that lack adequate jury trial facilities acceptable to the county and district judges.
Who decides whether a county’s facilities are “adequate”?
The statute ties adequacy to what is acceptable to the county and district judges, rather than setting a fixed physical standard.
Does trying the case in another county change the outcome’s validity?
No. The statute states the case may be tried in an adjoining county with the same effect as if it had been tried in the county where the offense was committed.
Can this happen for a case in either county court or district court?
Yes. The section covers criminal cases pending in either the county court or the district court of a qualifying small county.
How does this section relate to sections 25-412.03 and 25-412.04?
Source & verification. Section text and the amendment-history citation are
reproduced verbatim from the Nebraska Legislature, Revisor of Statutes, enacted by the
Nebraska Legislature. Last verified July 22, 2026. ·
Official source
Also known as: small county criminal trial venueadjoining county trial nebraskainadequate courthouse facilities trialpopulation 4000 venue rulecriminal case moved to another countysection 25-412.01 explained