Author: Matthew L.M. Fletcher

RFP for Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe Judicial Services

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe

Judicial Services

The Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe is seeking proposals from persons in good standing with the Washington State Bar Association or graduates of an ABA accredited law school with Indian law experience who are interested serving as a Tribal Court Judge for the Sauk-Suiattle Tribal Court.

The Sauk-Suiattle Tribal Court convenes on the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Reservation located near Darrington, Washington one to two full days per month to hold civil and criminal trials and hearings.

A person serving as judge must also be available telephonically and/or electronically from time to time as occasionally the need arises to address requests by tribal law enforcement for search warrants and to issue temporary orders such as domestic violence protection orders, restraining orders, and emergency shelter care orders arising from Indian Child Welfare Act cases.

No particular format is required for submission of a proposal. Your proposal may propose an hourly, monthly or daily rate for providing judicial services. Persons willing to serve as a Judge for the Sauk-Suiattle Tribal Court should send a letter of interest or resume and proposal by July 30, 2015 to:

Stephanie Spiering

Court Clerk/Justice System Program Coordinator

Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe

5318 Chief Brown Lane

Darrington, WA 98241

(360) 436-0131

FAX (360) 436-1511

sspiering@sauk-suiattle.com

Southern Ute Indian Tribe Files Challenge to BLM’s Hydraulic Fracturing Rule

Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

Here is the complaint in Southern Ute Indian Tribe v. Dept. of Interior (D. Colo.):

1 Complaint

From the tribe’s press release:

Ignacio, Colorado: The Southern Ute Indian Tribe filed suit yesterday in the United States District Court in Denver against the Department of the Interior challenging the Department’s new hydraulic fracturing rule for federal and Indian lands. The suit alleges that the rule conflicts with the Indian Mineral Leasing Act (IMLA) and asks the court to vacate those parts of the rule that violate the IMLA and frustrate the Tribe’s authority over its own lands. “The Tribe values the Reservation environment, but the BLM was overreaching when it enacted this rule for tribal lands. Tribal lands should be treated differently than federal lands,” said Clement J. Frost, the Tribe’s Chairman. “Some of the provisions in this new rule are just burdensome regulations that are not tied to an environmental benefit. This rule is one more regulatory burden that delays energy development on the Reservation and these delays have a very real effect on the Tribe’s ability to provide services and benefits to the tribal membership,” he said.

Tribes are currently authorized by federal regulation to supersede the Secretary’s regulations governing lease operations, and the Tribe has passed its own Hydraulic Fracturing and Chemical Disclosure Regulations. “The BLM’s new rule did not strike the right balance. We can do better,” said Chairman Frost. Bob Zahradnik, Operating Director of the Southern Ute Growth Fund, explained that the Tribe’s regulations vary from the new federal regulations in two important ways: “The Tribe’s regulations provide more protection for aquifers with less bureaucratic morass. It’s a win-win. Our regulations are compatible with Colorado’s regulations, and they also avoid the pre-approval delays that will be caused by BLM’s hydraulic fracturing rule. Those delays put the Tribe in a bad position relative to adjacent fee landowners. If it is too burdensome to do business on tribal lands, operators just take their business elsewhere.”

FMLA Claim against Morongo Casino Dismissed on Immunity Grounds

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are the materials in Fuller v. Morongo Casino (C.D. Cal.):

14-1 Motion to Dismiss

17 Opposition

28 DCT Order

Ninth Circuit Rejects Habeas Petition of Navajo Man Sentenced to Death

Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

Here is the opinion in United States v. Mitchell.

Brief tk.

California Tribes Seek Rehearing Or Depublication Of Official Immunity Ruling

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here are the materials:

Petition for Rehearing

Cosentino – Application and Amicus Brief

Here’s a snippet from the petition:

The Opinion effectively holds that the Tribe’s Gaming Commission lacks authority to revoke a gaming license unless it cites to reasons for its actions that are expressly and affirmatively authorized to do so by codified law. That is incorrect as a matter of law. The Opinion also wrongly asserts that tribal sovereign immunity can be overcome by alleging that a tribal official acted in excess of his or her authority and that, upon such allegation, tribal official immunity is subject to an evidentiary weighing and balancing that involves shifting burdens of production and persuasion, similar to California’s law of qualified immunity. Tribal official immunity, however, is an absolute privilege, like the absolute immunity enjoyed by the Justices of this Court.

We previously covered this case here.

 

The Ancient One is a Colville Ancestor

Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

Here is “The ancestry and affiliations of Kennewick Man” as published in Nature.

From the abstract:

Kennewick Man, referred to as the Ancient One by Native Americans, is a male human skeleton discovered in Washington state (USA) in 1996 and initially radiocarbon-dated to 8,340–9,200 calibrated years before present (bp)1. His population affinities have been the subject of scientific debate and legal controversy. Based on an initial study of cranial morphology it was asserted that Kennewick Man was neither Native American nor closely related to the claimant Plateau tribes of the Pacific Northwest, who claimed ancestral relationship and requested repatriation under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The morphological analysis was important to judicial decisions that Kennewick Man was not Native American and that therefore NAGPRA did not apply. Instead of repatriation, additional studies of the remains were permitted2. Subsequent craniometric analysis affirmed Kennewick Man to be more closely related to circumpacific groups such as the Ainu and Polynesians than he is to modern Native Americans2. In order to resolve Kennewick Man’s ancestry and affiliations, we have sequenced his genome to ~1× coverage and compared it to worldwide genomic data including the Ainu and Polynesians. We find that Kennewick Man is closer to modern Native Americans than to any other population worldwide. Among the Native American groups for whom genome-wide data are available for comparison, several seem to be descended from a population closely related to that of Kennewick Man, including the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation (Colville), one of the five tribes claiming Kennewick Man. We revisit the cranial analyses and find that, as opposed to genomic-wide comparisons, it is not possible on that basis to affiliate Kennewick Man to specific contemporary groups. We therefore conclude based on genetic comparisons that Kennewick Man shows continuity with Native North Americans over at least the last eight millennia.

Tenth Circuit Briefs in New Mexico v. Dept. of Interior (Challenge to Part 291 Regs re: Pojoaque Pueblo)

Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

Here are the briefs:

Interior Opening Brief

Pojoaque Opening Brief

New Mexico Brief

Interior Reply Brief

Pojoaque Reply Brief

Lower court materials here.

ICT Profile on PLSI ’05 Alum Matt Campbell

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is “Matt Campbell Works the Dream Job at NARF.”

An excerot:

In 2005, he received a flyer for the Pre-Law Summer Institute for American Indians and Alaska Natives, offered at the American Indian Law Center (AILC) in Albuquerque. He called the AILC yet was told the deadline had passed. “They asked me to send my application anyway, and I got in,” he said.

Campbell describes the two-month program, which replicates the first year of law school, as “intense,” and it attracts recruiters from law schools all over the country. Not only did he do well, but he was also wooed by recruiters from three different law schools. Campbell ended up enrolling at Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University in Tempe. In addition to his J.D., obtained in spring 2008, he holds an Indian Legal Certificate, with an environmental emphasis.

Continue reading →

Kirsten Carlson on Congress, Tribal Recognition, and Legislative-Administrative Multiplicity

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Kirsten Matoy Carlson has posted her paper, “Congress, Tribal Recognition, and Legislative-Administrative Multiplicity,” on SSRN.

Here is the abstract:

For over thirty years, tribal leaders, state officials, members of Congress, and scholars have decried the process by which the United States recognizes Indian tribes. Most accounts have focused exclusively on the administrative process, omitting Congress from their analyses and suggesting that Congress plays a minor role in tribal recognition. The widely-accepted proposition that Congress has relinquished control over recognition is a testable hypothesis. This article tests this proposition empirically. The results call into question the dominant narrative about the congressional role in federal recognition and show that it is just plain wrong. In addition to debunking prevailing misconceptions, the data exposes an intriguing puzzle — a more complicated tale of legislative-administrative multiplicity. Federal recognition is not a uniform administrative process. Instead, parallel legislative and administrative processes exist and often intersect in complex ways. This discovery is an important first step towards understanding these dual processes and their implications for federal Indian law and understandings of legislative-administrative relationships more generally.

Highly recommended.

 

Federal Court Dismisses (for third time) Prisoner Complaint against Navajo Police

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are the orders in Francisco v. Navajo Nation Police Dept. (D. Ariz.):

18 DCT Order Granting IFP Status

20 DCT Order on First Amended Complaint

23 DCT Order on Second Amended Complaint