Searching Holt County Criminal Dockets
Begin with the Nebraska.gov JUSTICE Search, the public index for Holt County trial-court cases. Enter the party name as the court recorded it. Then narrow by county, court type, and any year or case-type filters the system offers. Party searches work; witness-name searches do not. Names can surface in forms you did not expect. A last-name search with tight filters often beats an exact name loaded down with a middle initial the court never recorded.
Search the two courts separately. A County Court hit may be a misdemeanor, an infraction, a traffic case, or the early stage of a felony, while a felony that advances later gets its own District Court case number and docket. Before assuming two similar entries describe one case, compare the caption, the party roles, the dates, and which court each filing belongs to. Matching names alone prove nothing.
- Open JUSTICE Search and select an individual or entity party search.
- Choose Holt County and begin with County Court or District Court based on the known case stage.
- Add case year, criminal case type, judge, or attorney to narrow a large name result.
- Open the matching detail and read the register of actions with the summary fields.
- Contact the clerk for copies, a courthouse-terminal search, or a record that cannot be accessed remotely.
Holt County Criminal Search Fields
A Holt County name can pull up too many matches. When that happens, the JUSTICE search form's filters earn their keep. Query by party name and choose individual or entity. You can then set county, case year, court type, case type and subtype, judge, attorney, and sort order, plus a client memo. The static form does not publish every dynamic list in full. Use the live service to see the Holt County choices actually on offer.
| Field | Use for Holt County search | Important limit |
|---|---|---|
| Party name | Start with the spelling used in the court record. | A party search is not a witness search. |
| County and court type | Choose Holt, then County Court or District Court. | A felony may require two court searches. |
| Year and case type | Reduce broad results after a name search. | Do not guess an unverified subtype. |
| Judge or attorney | Further distinguish cases when those facts are known. | Use only information connected to the case being sought. |
One-time searches cap out at 30 cases, and results stay viewable for three calendar days. The live page lists a $17 one-time price, and a no-result search still draws the charge. Prices can change, so confirm current terms on the live service.
Inside a Holt County Criminal Docket
Open a Holt County criminal docket and you may find the caption and case number, court, party list, judge, charge or case-type details, an event history, hearing dates, financial fields, outcome data, and links to document images where they exist. What shows up varies case by case. Remember what a filed charge is: an allegation recorded in the case. A conviction or final disposition needs a judgment. Treat the charge that way only if the record itself shows one.
| Case number | The court identifier shown in the detail record. Holt criminal cases should be matched by number, court, caption, and date rather than name alone. |
|---|---|
| Charge or case type | The criminal category or allegation recorded by the court, subject to later plea, dismissal, or judgment entries. |
| Hearing settings | Dates for events such as arraignment, preliminary hearing, pretrial matters, plea, trial, or sentencing where entered. |
| Register of actions | The sequence of court filings, settings, orders, continuances, and other case events. |
| Disposition | An outcome or judgment entry, which should be read with the complete case history. |
Images are never promised. Even when a filing is not posted online or is restricted, the public record can still show an index or register entry for it.
Holt County Criminal Docket Routes
Misdemeanors and infractions usually travel through County Court. In Holt County, that court also handles the early felony steps such as a complaint, bond, arraignment, and preliminary hearing. Felony trials, pleas, sentencing, and post-judgment events generally land in District Court. That move comes after bindover or a district filing. The county-court jurisdiction statute sets the state framework. It covers the County Court half of that routing.
Searching both courts is not a redundant step. It mirrors how a case actually progresses between courts with different jobs. The county and district dockets can carry separate entries and separate numbers. Court staff can tell you which office holds a known record. A request goes faster when you bring the case number or full caption.
How a Criminal Case Moves
Think of a criminal register of actions as a diary, not a script. Events land on it as they happen. No case is guaranteed to follow every step. A misdemeanor may stay in County Court from filing to disposition. A felony can begin there. It may then show up on a District Court docket after the preliminary phase. Each step can leave behind a setting, a motion, an order, a payment field, or another docket entry.
Docket flow: Filing or complaint → arraignment → preliminary activity when required → pretrial events → plea or trial → disposition → sentencing when applicable.
Continuances can push a setting. The calendar alone is never the whole record. Check both the case detail and the court calendar, then call the clerk when the timing of an appearance matters.
Holt County Criminal Docket Filings
The official FY2025 reports span July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025. The Holt County Court row shows 173 misdemeanor filings and 38 felony entries. It also lists 76 traffic filings. The Holt District Court row shows 16 felony filings and 29 other-criminal filings. Those splits explain the pattern. Choosing the right court is part of any Holt County criminal docket search.
Filing totals are not convictions. They are not pending counts or tallies of unique people, either. A fiscal-year total cannot say whether one particular case is still open, so the docket detail and the clerk-held record stay the case-specific sources.
Courts That Hold Criminal Dockets
Two courts in O'Neill hold the Holt County criminal dockets. Holt County Court sits at 204 North 4th Street and handles county-court criminal matters. Holt District Court keeps the district records in Suite 6 of the same courthouse complex. There is also a public terminal at the courthouse. That option is documented for when remote access falls short. Ask the right clerk how the terminal or file process works for your case.
The County Court page names Laura Reynoldson as clerk. Junior Young is listed on the District Court page. The county government's County Clerk is a separate office. Don't assume that office holds a criminal court docket. The Nebraska Problem-Solving Courts page lays out the statewide program categories. Those categories show up in Judicial Branch reporting.
A report's program category names no one and replaces nothing. The court's actual register of actions is still the record that counts.
Holt County Criminal Docket Program
Holt County sits in Judicial District 8. The district's official directory lists a North Central Problem-Solving Court coordinator in O'Neill. Judge Kale B. Burdick's public biography says he has served with the North Central program since 2019. Each FY2025 filing report shows two adult problem-solving-court cases in its Holt rows.
No Holt-specific eligibility list, participant roster, completion rate, or program length appears anywhere here. Read a docket category as court administration information. Never treat it as a label pinned to a person. Questions about a known criminal case go to the court the case record identifies.
Sealed Dockets and Public Access
Nebraska Court Rule §1-805 sets out the public electronic categories: indexes, summaries, registers of actions, calendars, and judgment summaries where available. Rule §1-808 carves out anything made confidential by law, rule, or case law, including sealed material. So a Holt County criminal docket search may return a public index without showing every filing or document behind it.
Public-access limits:
Rule §1-808 excludes sealed and legally confidential court information from public access.
Nebraska Revised Statute §43-2,108 imposes special protection for juvenile records and protected reports.
Nebraska’s juvenile sealing information describes the official path for qualifying juvenile records.
Note: A restricted or missing result needs confirmation from the court clerk, not a rebuild from whatever scraps the public record shows. The Judicial Branch juvenile-record sealing page spells out the official sealing route.
That sealing guidance governs access to protected records. It never turns a public criminal search into a complete source for juvenile records.
Holt County Juvenile Record Limits
Holt County has no separate juvenile court. Juvenile matters run through the County Court structure instead. That routing does not make juvenile files ordinary public criminal dockets. Nebraska law protects medical, psychological, social, and probation materials. It also shields other juvenile information covered by statutory access rules and court orders.
Someone eligible who wants their own sealed juvenile court record must go through the Judicial Branch process. The court decides who sees protected material. A public name search is no way to locate or interpret a minor's record. The juvenile-record confidentiality statute spells out which juvenile file categories are protected. It also sets out what the access limits are.
Those statutory protections hold even though Holt County juvenile cases route through County Court. The juvenile sealing statute supplies the statutory sealing framework.
The statutory route, not a general docket search, governs access to sealed juvenile records.
Holt County Criminal Search Follow-Up
When a Holt County criminal search comes up empty, work the basics first. Check the name spelling. Check the Individual or Entity choice, court type, county filter, and case year. Then weigh the 24-hour lag on new cases. Also weigh the 30-result limit and any restriction or retention. A case detail can show an index entry with no image attached. The clerk can point a requester to the courthouse terminal or copy process. That works for a specific, identifiable file.
Federal criminal matters sit outside the Nebraska state trial-court system entirely. Search those through federal tools such as PACER. Keeping that line clear stops a failed state search from being mistaken for a full search across court systems. The U.S. Attorney's District of Nebraska page identifies the federal enforcement district. That is a different track from Holt County's state-court docket route.
Federal court records live in federal access systems. Holt County's state trial-court search will never display them.