News

ACLU FOIA Suit against IHS re: Reproductive Health Care

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here is the complaint: ACLU v IHS Complaint.

Here is the commentary from the ACLU lawyers (article here) (h/t Indianz):

By Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, Staff Attorney, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project & Robert Doody, Executive Director, ACLU of South Dakota

“They treat us just like guinea pigs when it comes to Indian Health Services.” That’s how one woman on the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation described the birth of her second child. She is not alone. Today, the ACLU and the ACLU of South Dakota filed a Freedom of Information of Act (FOIA) lawsuit against Indian Health Services (IHS), seeking information about the provision of reproductive health care services to the women of the Cheyenne River Sioux.

For nearly a decade, the women of the Cheyenne River Sioux — most of whom depend on IHS for their health care — have had to travel at least 90 miles to Pierre, South Dakota, over poorly maintained roads, to be able to give birth at the nearest hospital with an IHS contract (the next closest hospital is 180 miles away). But even worse is the treatment they describe once they get there.

Many women report that they are being told to forgo natural labor and delivery, and instead accept medication to induce labor, either on or before their due dates, at a time selected exclusively by their doctor. They are given little or no counseling — indeed, many women say that the first time their doctor spoke to them about induction of labor was on the day they were induced. One young woman told us that shortly after learning she was to be induced, she asked her doctor to wait just one day so that her mother could be with her during the birth of her first child. Her doctor refused.

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Rebecca Tsosie to Join New Mexico Law Faculty

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From John LaVelle:

Dear Indian law colleagues,

It my great privilege and pleasure to announce that Professor Rebecca Tsosie will be joining the faculty of the University of New Mexico School of Law, beginning in the summer of 2011.

Thanks to Dean Kevin Washburn for working creatively to facilitate Rebecca’s appointment.

— John

National Post 5 Part Series on Ontario Tobacco

Kate Fort

The National Post is doing a 5 part series on tobacco in southwest Ontario and Quebec (h/t Pechanga).  Part of the story involves the Six Nations, but in part 2 of the series, the focus turns to non-Indian tobacco growers.

Three months ago, a southwestern Ontario farmer reportedly sold 90,000 lbs. of raw-leaf tobacco, about a tenth of the crop produced on the area’s largest farms, to a shadowy buyer. The eye-popping, secret payment he pocketed in return was $1-million — in cash — close to five times the price he would have commanded on the legal market.

The customer, according to another grower familiar with the transaction, was the owner of a contraband cigarette factory, operating well outside the strictly regulated raw-tobacco marketing system. Although more akin to deals struck in the drug world and not always so large, such sales appear to be occurring with surprising frequency in Ontario’s tobacco belt. Reports have long suggested that the dozens of aboriginal-run cigarette plants in Canada and the United States are mostly supplied by raw tobacco smuggled from the southern states, or stolen from Canadian farms.

Sources in agriculture and the underground tobacco industry, however, say many Ontario farmers have been pulling in handsome sums selling — illegally — to the contraband industry.

And the description of Wednesday’s article:

All about Canada’s smuggling capital: Akwesasne Mohawk reserve, straddling the border with the U.S and perfect for trade in contraband. Yet Akwesasne’s smuggling origins lie with legal, big-tobacco companies, and smuggling’s resurgence in the last several years came despite urgent warnings from Mohawk leaders to the federal government.

Best News of the Day: Saginaw Chippewa Close to Settling Reservation Boundaries Case

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From Indianz:

The Saginaw Chippewa Tribe has reportedly reached a deal over the boundaries of its reservation in Michigan.

The tribe sued the state to clarify the Indian Country status of the Isabella Reservation. The Department of Justice sided with the tribe and a tentative agreement could end the case, The Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun reported.

“All parties to this case have now reached tentative agreement regarding the terms of a global settlement of all disputes between them in this case,” according to a court filing, the paper reported.

The deal would include the state, Isabella County and the city of Mount Pleasant.

Get the Story:

Tentative deal reached in Tribal suit (The Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun 9/17)

LVD Sorta Back to Normal

Matthew L.M. Fletcher4 Comments

From TV via Pechanga:

WATERSMEET — After nearly a week of courtrooms, protests, and imprisonment the Lac Vieux Desert Tribal Council plans to return to their reservation in Watersmeet.

According to their attorney, the nine-member council plans to return home and conduct business as usual until the tribal appellate court hears the case.

Monday dozens of council and tribal members protested outside of the Marquette Federal Courthouse saying they are political prisoners upholding the tribe’s constitution.

All nine members of the tribal council were jailed last week after refusing to swear in the new executive council due to alleged election problems.

More News Coverage of Seneca Tax Case

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

2010 09 14 Article re SNOI v Paterson Hearing

2010 09 14 Buffalo Business First Article – Senecas, NYS resu

News Analysis of Seneca Tax Case

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

An excerpt from the Buffalo News, via Pechanga:

WASHINGTON — Gov. David A. Paterson warned of possible “violence and death” if the State of New York actually tries collecting taxes on cigarettes sold from Seneca Nation of Indians territory, but lawyers in the know think that “appeals and amicus briefs” are more likely.

Rather than a rage of tire-burning along the Thruway, years of litigation are the more likely result of the state’s latest attempt to collect taxes on cigarettes sold on reservations to non-Indians, legal experts say.

The litigating has already begun in the Buffalo courtroom of U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara, and it is likely to continue for years, even though the U.S. Supreme Court in 1994 said that New York could collect such sales taxes. The legal fight continues because the high court did not give the state carte blanche to collect those levies any which way.

In fact, the 16-year-old decision in New York v. Attea left the Senecas plenty of legal room for courts to explore in later cases. For example, that case did not address the argument that the Senecas love to make publicly but that they have been reluctant to use in court: that the state’s effort to collect cigarette taxes on reservations is a violation of their treaty rights.

That’s just one of the open questions that could keep the Senecas’ tobacco business in court and on life support for a long time — even though the Senecas are likely to lose in the end. After all, in five cases from five states, the high court has approved efforts to tax sales to non-Indians on Indian land.

Despite those decisions, “the court specifically left a lot for later” in the 1994 case involving tobacco sales on New York reservations, said Joseph E. Zdarsky, the Buffalo lawyer who represented tobacco wholesaler Milhelm Attea in that Supreme Court case. Much of what the high court left undecided could be decided in the case the tribe filed before Arcara that takes issue with the state’s tax plan.

The tribe also filed a separate lawsuit challenging the PACT Act, the recently enacted federal law that bans the mailing of cigarettes. But given that the federal courts rarely overturn an act of Congress, legal experts dismissed that lawsuit as one with no future.

Similarly, they said the case the Senecas filed in state court against the state’s tax plan is not as significant as the tax case the tribe brought before Arcara — which, like other similar Indian tax cases, could be in the federal court system for years.

“These cases tend to go all the way,” Zdarsky said — that is, all the way to the Supreme Court. That’s because the federal courts have tended to decide Indian taxation cases narrowly, based on the particulars of each case, rather than issuing sweeping pronouncements.

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News Article about the Failure of the Whiteriver Serial Rapist Investigation

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the article. Shocking story.

LVD Council Released from Jail

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From tv:

WATERSMEET — The Lac Vieux Desert tribal council is back in Watersmeet after an appellate court ruled they should be released from jail.

According to the tribal council’s attorney, Zeke Fletcher, the appellate court made the ruling two days ago but Judge Bradley Dakota did not recognize the ruling.

The nine member council has been in the Iron County jail since Wednesday because they refuse to swear in two new tribal council members despite the court order.

They were held in contempt of court and jailed.

Obama Vaguely Supportive of Cobell Settlement

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

An excerpt from BLT:

Also at the news conference, a reporter asked Obama whether he can commit to winning legislative approval of two settlements that would end major discrimination claims against the federal government: the Cobell and Pigford II settlements. The Cobell claims relate to unpaid royalties from natural resource extraction on American Indian lands, while the Pigford claims relate to disparate treatment for black farmers in U.S. Department of Agriculture programs.

Obama did not make a commitment, but he said he would try. “It is a fair settlement. It is a just settlement,” Obama said, appearing to conflate the two settlements. “We think it’s important for Congress to fund that settlement, and we’re going to continue to make it a priority.”

The lead lawyer for plaintiffs in the Cobell litigation has accused the White House of not making the settlement a priority.