Original opinion here.
Court of Federal Claims opinion in Jicarilla Apache Nation v. United States, denying the U.S.’s motion to stay here.
United States petition for rehearing here.
Navajo Nation and Pueblo of Laguna Amicus opposing rehearing here.
United States petition to extend filing deadline for a writ of certiorari here.
Here.
Here: Madison County cert petition.
Questions presented:
The questions presented in this case are:
1. whether tribal sovereign immunity from suit, to the extent it should continue to be recognized, bars taxing authorities from foreclosing to collect lawfully imposed property taxes.
2. whether the ancient Oneida reservation in New York was disestablished or diminished.
Lower court materials here.
Available here on the U.S. News & WR site:
An excerpt:
The Federal Judicial Center, the education and research agency for the federal courts, lists only two Native American judges as having served in the nation’s history.
“There’s just a lack of representation and that lack of representation leads to no voice, no voice whatsoever in the decisions that are being made about Natives,” said Richard Guest, a senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, one of the Indian groups that have been meeting with White House officials in recent months, urging them to consider an Indian for the Supreme Court vacancy and for other federal judgeships.
Heather Dawn Thompson, the immediate past president of the National Native American Bar Association, calls it a “rather frustrating” situation.
“For over two hundred years, the United States Supreme Court has sat in judgment over us, over our lands, over our treaties and over our families. Not one single day have we ever had a voice in those decisions,” Thompson’s group said in its letter to Obama. [See a slide show of the Supreme Court Justices.]
Activists say they will continue meeting with White House officials, and tribal leaders are recruiting qualified Indian lawyers, professors and judges, such as retired Navajo Nation Supreme Court Justice Raymond Austin, to inspire Native students to pursue law degrees and careers.
Austin said he’s not surprised that the federal bench lacks Indian representation, but that “the time has arrived for President Obama to correct this deficiency.”
The Indian law community believes a combination of factors is to blame for their exclusion, including educational and cultural barriers, the lack of political influence by Indians on the national stage and the federal judicial nominating process itself.
One problem is the pool of Indian applicants qualified for a spot on the federal bench is just beginning to grow.
From How Appealing:
“Tribal-rights advocates seek ‘fix’ in Congress”: The Providence (R.I.) Journal today contains an article that begins, “Tribal-rights advocates came in force to Capitol Hill Tuesday to ask Congress to undo last year’s Supreme Court ruling that made it harder for Native Americans to set their own rules for the use of certain lands — including the Rhode Island parcel at issue in the decision.”
More at Indianz.
Here is the petition in Suquamish Tribe v. Upper Skagit Tribe: Suquamish Cert Petition.
Here is the question presented:
Whether a court implementing an unambiguous court order is bound to apply that order according to its plain terms, or whether the court should instead determine whether the judge who initially issued the order “intended something other than its apparent meaning,” as the Ninth Circuit held in this case.
Lower court materials here.
Here: Schaghticoke Cert Opp
Good stuff. 🙂
Here is the article: The Supreme Court’s Treatment of Sovereigns as Amici Curiae, by Stephen R. McAllister.
An excerpt:
THE SUPREME COURT’S RULE on briefs of amici curiae does not treat all sovereigns the same. In particular, Indian Tribes and foreign nations are treated less generously than the United States, any State or territory, and even local governments. This article explores the origin of this disparate treatment and comments on its propriety.
Way out my league here, but Justice Thomas, perhaps, might think so. His reference today in McDonald v. City of Chicago to two Indian treaties from 1862 and 1868 [slip op. at 20 n. 7 (Thomas, J., concurring)] suggests that he could be thinking along those lines … or he was really struggling to find references to that language somewhere in treaty language circa 1860s.
From How Appealing:
“Elena Kagan and the Miracle at Harvard”: Kevin K. Washburn, law professor and dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law, has posted this essay online at SSRN.
Turtle Talk 
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