The Nebraska Court of Appeals should have considered the defendant's ineffective counsel appeal because his challenge to the Nebraska terroristic threats statute was merit less.

State v. Nelson, S-06-449

Although defendant filed notice in his ineffective counsel appeal that he would allege that the Nebraska terroristic threats statute (28-311.01) is unconstitutional, the Nebraska Supreme Court holds the court of appeals should have heard the appeal. "(Defendant's) mere assertion that a statute may be unconstitutional does not automatically deprive the Court of Appeals of jurisdiction over the case. To conclude otherwise would amount to ceding the regulation of our docket, and that of the Court of Appeals, to the unsupported allegations of litigants. We find that for the constitutionality of a statute to be genuinely “involved” in an appeal,"