Nebraska

A fringe church that spreads its message against homosexuality through protests outside military funerals recently secured another legal victory for its controversial picketing activities.

The Nebraska Supreme Court last Friday unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that city officials did not violate state open meetings laws in connection with a local land annexation initiative.

Nebraska residents Curt and Susan Schauer had filed a lawsuit alleging, among other things, that Ord city council members violated state open meetings laws when they failed to provide adequate notice of meetings and informally met to discuss official business.

Nebraska has enacted a law that will require government bodies to keep public records of legal settlements, The Associated Press reported.

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman signed the bill, LB 742, this week. It will make it more difficult for government entities to keep costly legal settlements secret and will prevent them from arguing that confidentiality agreements prohibit public access to settlements.

The names of individuals buried in a state cemetery are death records, the Nebraska Supreme Court said today, ruling that they must be released in accordance with the state's open records law.

Feb. 20, 2008  ·   An Adams County district judge last week barred the release of records identifying almost 1,000 people who were buried in a Hastings, Neb., psychiatric institution's cemetery as much as 100 years ago.

Last summer, the Adams County Historical Society filed suit after the Hastings Regional Center denied its request to release the names of those buried at the cemetery between 1909 and 1959.

District Judge Terri Harder has barred the release of records identifying almost 1,000 people buried in the Hastings Regional Center cemetery from 1909 to 1959. The Adams County Historical Society filed suit last summer asking for the names to be made available to the public.

Harder's ruling upholds the center's policy that all documents, including the burial records, are labeled "confidential information" and are closed to the public.

A historical society in Nebraska is attempting to gain access to the names and dates of death for people buried in a cemetery once reserved for psychiatric patients.