Here: Cert Opp in Suquamish v Upper Skagit et al
Cert petition is here.
Supreme Court
United States v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe Cert Petition
Here: Jicarilla cert petition, and the appendix, Final Jicarilla App.
Lower court materials here.
Question presented:
Whether the attorney-client privilege entitles the United States to withhold from an Indian tribe confidential communications between the government and government attorneys implicating the administration of statutes pertaining to property held in trust for the tribe.
Oneida Indian Nation Brief in Opposition to Madison County Cert Petition
Here: Oneida Brief in Opposition to Cert Petition.
The petition and links to lower court materials here.
Enviro Groups File Cert Petition in HRI/Navajo Uranium Mining Case
The case is captioned Morris v. United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Petition here. Lower court materials here [corrected link, thanks to A.T.S.].
Questions presented:
1. In determining whether public radiation doses from a proposed new uranium mine would exceed regulatory limits, could the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”) interpret 10 C.F.R. § 20.1301(a)(1) to allow it to ignore radioactive emissions from existing uranium mine waste on the mine site?
2. Where, in establishing a groundwater restoration surety for a proposed uranium mine, the NRC failed to follow its own criteria for protecting the drinking water on the site, did the NRC violate the Atomic Energy Act’s prohibition
against licensing operations that are inimical to public health and safety?
News coverage from Law360 (miigwetch to J.W.):
Environmental and Native American groups on Thursday launched a last-gasp effort to fight proposed in situ leach uranium mining in northwestern New Mexico that they allege will contaminate large areas of groundwater, including a primary drinking water source for 15,000 Navajos.
In a petition for a writ of certiorari, the Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining, a Navajo community organization; the Southwest Research and Information Center, an environmental education organization; and two local ranchers, Grace Sam and Marilyn Morris, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a March 2010 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
The groups said that under the Tenth Circuit’s ruling, Hydro Resources Inc. would not have to clean up existing Cold War-era radioactive waste on its property, and that both the old waste and new mining would expose residents to dangerous levels of radiation.
This is the first time that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has licensed a mining operation in a community drinking water supply, despite the fact that no aquifer in which in situ leach uranium mining has occurred has ever been restored to premining condition, according to the groups.
Moreover, the government has allegedly not required an adequate bond to clean up the mine should HRI — a subsidiary of the Texas-based Uranium Resources Inc. — walk away from the site.
“The community is letting the government know that they will not give up the fight and they will continue resisting these proposed uranium mines,” said Eric Jantz, an attorney with the New Mexico Environmental Law Center who is representing the plaintiffs.
California Files Cert Petition in Rincon Band Gaming Compact Revenue Sharing Case
Here: California Cert Petition.
Questions presented:
1. Whether a state demands direct taxation of an Indian tribe in compact negotiations under Section 11 of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, when it bargains for a share of tribal gaming revenue for the State’s general fund.
2. Whether the court below exceeded its jurisdiction to determine the State’s good faith in compact negotiations under Section 11 of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, when it weighed the relative value of concessions offered by the parties in those negotiations.
Lower court opinion here.
Osage Tribe Amicus Brief in U.S. v. Tohono O’odham Nation
Here: 09-846 Osage Nation.
Tribal Amicus Brief in U.S. v. Tohono O’odham Nation
Carcieri, the Word “Now,” and Fortune Cookies in the George Mason Law Review
Jeremy Graboyes has published, “Now, Voyager: Deixis and the Temporal Pragmatics of Statutes,” in the George Mason Law Review.
An excerpt:
You come across a fortune cookie. The fortune inside reads: “The plans you now have are going to succeed.” Unsure when now is, you are left wondering which of your goals will be successful. There are three possibilities. First, now references some fixed point in the past—be it the moment the fortune was first conceived, printed, enclosed in its cookie, or shipped from the factory. All goals you had at that moment will be successful, but you have no guarantees as to goals made later in time, including goals at the time of reading the fortune. Second, now references the moment you first read your fortune. All goals you have at that moment will be successful, but you have no guarantees as to goals you may make later in time. Third, now references any moment you read your fortune. Whenever you read the fortune, no matter how many times you read it, you are guaranteed that all goals you have at that moment will be successful.
A legal journal would be a strange place, indeed, for an article discussing the hermeneutics of fortune cookies. But this interpretive problem has reared its head in the context of statutory interpretation, most recently in Carcieri v. Salazar, decided by the Supreme Court in 2009. This Comment analyzes the interpretive problem now presents in statutory language and gauges methods to resolve the ambiguity. After beginning with the word’s ordinary meaning and finding it to offer no real guidance, this Comment concludes that, absent clear indication of the word’s meaning from legislative history, only a purposive or pragmatic determination can provide a solution. What is significant about now—and what forms the crux of this Comment—is that the resolution of the signification of now relies on what we think a statute really is.
NYTs Article on Ideological Polarization on the Supreme Court
Here.
An excerpt:
Indeed, the polarization among law clerks has had consequences for the development of the law, a 2008 study published in the DePaul Law Review found. The presence of clerks who identified themselves as Democrats made liberal votes from the justices for whom they worked more likely, the study found. The opposite was true, too.
A handful of federal appeals court judges known as feeder judges are gatekeepers. J. Michael Luttig, for instance, produced more than 40 Supreme Court clerks in his 15 years on the federal bench, with 33 of them going to work for Justices Thomas or Scalia. Mr. Luttig, now general counsel of the Boeing Company, said the justices’ overall hiring practices reflected a fundamental shift.
“As law has moved closer to mere politics, political affiliations have naturally and predictably become proxies for the different political agendas that have been pressed in and through the courts,” Mr. Luttig said. “Given this politicization, it should come as no surprise to learn that the more liberal judges tend both to hire clerks who would self-describe themselves as Democrats and to hire clerks from other judges who would likewise self-describe themselves as Democrats, and vice versa for the more conservative judges.”
Tohono O’odham Nation Merits Brief
Here: TON Respondents Brief.
The government’s brief is here.
Turtle Talk 
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