Here is today’s order list.
Supreme Court Denies Cert in Beaulieu v. Minnesota
Here is today’s order list.
Criminal
Washington Appeals Court Applies Nevada v. Hicks to Authorize State Search Warrant at Colville
Here are the materials in State v. Clark (Wash. App.):
And the briefs:
Paul Spruhan on Non-Indian Consent to Tribal Criminal Jurisdiction
Paul Spruhan has posted his draft paper, ‘Indians, in a Jurisdictional Sense’: The Continuing Viability of Consent as a Theory of Tribal Criminal Jurisdiction Over Non-Indians, on SSRN. We have accepted this paper for our new collection of essays to be edited by Fletcher, Fort, and Singel arising out of last fall’s MSU Indigenous Law and Policy Center annual conference, Beyond the Tribal Law and Order Act.
Here is Paul’s abstract:
The paper, written as a chapter for a proposed collaborative book on the Tribal Law and Order Act, discusses the theory of consent as a means of asserting tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians. It discusses the legal history of naturalization and adoption of non-Indians as citizens of tribal nations as one form of consent. It then discusses the historical and contemporary influence of the Department of the Interior on tribal membership provisions adopted under the Indian Reorganization Act and other laws, and the shift from naturalization to rules restricting membership to citizens with tribal or Indian blood. It further discusses different modern theories of consent, adopted by the Navajo Nation and other tribes, based both on tribal traditional law and the Indian Civil Rights Act, and their relative chances of surviving federal scrutiny. It concludes with the proposal that non-Indians themselves consent to tribal criminal jurisdiction as a form of resistance to the ongoing reduction of tribal authority by the federal courts.
VAWA Reauthorization Bill Close to Senate Floor Vote
Here is the Congressional report that accompanies the bill —
Ninth Circuit Rejects RFRA Money Claims in Hawaii-Based Native American Church Case Involving Marijuana
Here are the materials in today’s opinion in Oklevueha Native American Church v. Holder:
Lower court materials here.
Swinomish-Licensed Smokes Sellers Prevail (In Part) in the Ninth Circuit on CCTA Charges
Here are the materials in United States v. Wilbur:
CA9 Opinion (per Judge W. Fletcher, with partial dissent by Judge Rawlinson)
An excerpt:
For the reasons that follow, we agree with the Wilburs that during the period from 2003 to 2005, when they were licensed to sell tobacco by the Swinomish Tribe, there were no “applicable State or local cigarette taxes” under the CCTA. We also agree with the Wilburs that the five-year statute of limitations for CCTA violations bars any charges based on activity from 1999 to 2003. We conclude, however, that after their tribal tobacco license expired in 2005, the Wilburs’ activities ceased to be covered by the Swinomish cigarette tax contract (“CTC”), and that the state’s retrocession therefore ceased to apply. The unstamped cigarettes the Wilburs transported and sold during this period were thus “contraband” under the CCTA. We reject the Wilburs’ due process and treaty arguments.
Reply Brief in Support of Cert in Beaulieu v. Minnesota
Here:
Strange Case: CA5 Affirms Fed. Conviction of Man Fraudulently Licensed by the Cherokee Nation Bar
Here is the opinion in United States v. Richardson.
A few tidbits:
On May 12, 2010, Richardson entered his appearance as Reyes’s attorney before the Board of Immigration Appeals, stating that he was admitted to practice in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Cherokee Nation, and filed an appeal of the immigration judge’s order that had removed Reyes to Mexico. This latter action was done notwithstanding the fact that Reyes had already been removed from the country.
***
The Clerk’s Office was aware of the irregularities with Richardson’s license because on June 29, Richardson had given Flores a “motion and order for admission pro hac vice.” On the motion, Richardson had filled out the date; case caption; his name; and his firm’s name (The Law Office of Dale A. Richardson), address, and telephone number. He had signed it, as well. He had indicated that he was an attorney licensed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and in the Cherokee Nation, and provided purported bar numbers for each jurisdiction. Richardson had submitted additional documentation with the motion and order, including: (1) a Cherokee Nation “attorney badge”; (2) a certificate from the American Bar Association (“ABA”); and (3) bar cards from the ABA, Massachusetts Bar Association (“MBA”), and Cherokee Nation Bar Association. Flores file-stamped the motion as received in court on June 29, 2010. Relying on the representations in the motion and order, Judge Hacker granted the motion and signed it before the Clerk’s Office verified Richardson’s license information out of concern that verification would require holding Reyes in jail for another 24 hours when the Government had already moved to dismiss the case. The motion was then sent to the Clerk’s Office for verification.
***
On March 17, 2009, Richardson had applied for admission to practice in the Cherokee Nation, a tribal government in Oklahoma that has judicial authority over lands held by the tribe. The Supreme Court of the Cherokee Nation admits attorneys into its bar, provided the attorney submits an application and is a licensed attorney in good standing in another jurisdiction. The Cherokee Nation does not license attorneys, but only admits them to practice in its court system. On his application, Richardson stated he had graduated from “The California School of Law” in 2007 and was licensed in California. He also had submitted a certificate of good standing from the Supreme Court of California that turned out to be fabricated from a basic template. Investigators also learned that the California bar number Richardson had provided on his application belonged to David Allen Richardson, a Sacramento, California, attorney who had been admitted to the California bar in December 2007. David Richardson testified that he never gave Richardson permission to use his bar number.On April 30, 2009, Richardson received notice that his admission had been approved, although he never actually took the oath of admission. Along with its notice of admission, the Cherokee Nation had sent Richardson a bar card and assigned him a bar number. From these materials, Richardson had fabricated a Cherokee Nation “attorney badge.” The FBI learned that the Cherokee Nation does not issue badges and, as pointed out during the trial, the badge had the seal of the State of Oklahoma instead of the seal of the Cherokee Nation. Richardson was disbarred by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court in October 2010, after it learned he was not, in fact, licensed to practice law in any jurisdiction.
The FBI also learned that, on November 4, 2009, Richardson had applied for admission to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma under the name, David Allen Richardson, Jr. He had claimed to have attended “The Washington College of Law” and the “University of London,” and to have been a member of the bars of the Cherokee Nation, Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts. He had submitted with his application his business card, ABA card, Cherokee Nation bar card, a certificate of good standing from the Supreme Court of the State of California, and a letter from the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court notifying Richardson of his admission to its court.
Michigan Indian Country Crime Report
Man Sentenced For Murder on Indian Reservation (U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan – http://www.justice.gov/usao/mie/)
Daniel Lawrence Fuller, 31, of Mount Pleasant Mich., was sentenced to 300 months in prison and five years supervised release for second degree murder on March 22, 2012. Fuller pleaded guilty to the charge on Dec. 7, 2012. The evidence at the plea hearing established that on July 10, 2010, Fuller strangled his sister, Iva Joy Fuller, to death on the Isabella Reservation.
Man Sentenced for Shooting Gun Inside House on Indian Reservation (U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan – http://www.justice.gov/usao/mie/)
Gonnzalo Alaniz Jr., 44, of Mount Pleasant, Mich., was sentenced to 14 months in prison and two years of supervised release on March 22, 2012. Alaniz was sentenced in connection to his guilty plea on Oct. 11, 2011. The evidence at the plea hearing established that on Feb. 23, 2011, Alaniz discharged a firearm on the Isabella Reservation after having previously been convicted of a felony.
Federal Court Remands Missouri Case against Martin Webb Pay Day Lenders Back to State Court
Here are the materials in State of Missouri v. Webb (E.D. Mo.):
DCT Order Remanding Mo. Complaint to State Court
Turtle Talk 
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