Tribal Codes

Fletcher: “Law, Politics, and the Constitution”

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here, on SSRN.

The abstract:

The question whether Congress may create legal classifications based on Indian status under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause is now reaching a critical point. Critics claim the Constitution allows no room to create race or ancestry based legal classifications. The critics are wrong. 

When it comes to Indian affairs, the Constitution is not colorblind. Textually, I argue, the Indian Commerce Clause and Indians Not Taxed Clause serve as express authorization for Congress to create legal classifications based on Indian race and ancestry, so long as those classifications are not arbitrary, as the Supreme Court stated a century ago in United States v. Sandoval and more recently in Morton v. Mancari. 

Should the Supreme Court reconsider those holdings, I suggest there are significant structural reasons why the judiciary should refrain from applying strict scrutiny review of Congressional legal classifications. The reasons are rooted in the political question doctrine and the institutional incapacity of the judiciary. Who is an Indian is a deeply fraught question to which judges have no special institutional capacity to assess. 

Federal Court Dismisses Complaint Asking an Order to Force Oneida Business Committee to Hold Meeting on Per Caps

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are the materials in Dallas v. Hill (E.D. Wis.):

11 Amended Complaint

16 Motion to Dismiss

20 Opposition

22 Reply

25 DCT Order

Mitchell v. Tulalip Tribes Cert Petition

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

mitchell-cert-petition.pdf

UPDATE:

Tulalip BIO

Question presented:

Does sovereign immunity bar the federal courts’ consideration of a declaratory judgment action to determine whether Respondent Tribes can exercise regulatory/taxing authority over real property owned in fee by Petitioners non-Indians, pursuant to allotments that were authorized by the Tribes’ treaty with the United States?

Lower court materials here.

Fourth Circuit Briefs in Williams v. Big Picture Loans

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

appellant brief

williams appellee brief

center for responsible lending amicus brief

conference of tribal lending commissioners amicus brief

States Brief

ncai amicus brief

Redacted Reply Brief

Lower court materials here.

Ninth Circuit Briefs in FMC Corp. v. Shoshone-Bannock Tribes

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

FMC Opening Brief

Tribal Appellee Brief

FMC Reply

Tribe Reply

Prior posts here.

GTB Press Release: “Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians Implements Authority to Prosecute All Persons, Including Non-Indians, for Domestic Violence”

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

Peshawbestown, MI – During a legislative session today, the Tribal Council of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians (GTB) enacted amendments to the Domestic Violence Ordinance authorizing tribal police and justice officials to investigate and prosecute domestic violence crimes committed by non-Indians on tribal lands. Non-Indians who live or work on the reservation or have a marriage or dating relationship with a Native person now may be prosecuted by GTB for domestic and dating violence crimes, and for criminal violations of certain protection orders. Individuals who commit these crimes in Indian country can be arrested by tribal police, prosecuted in the Tribal Court, and sentenced to incarceration. Crimes committed outside of Indian country, between two strangers, between two non-Indians, or by a person without sufficient ties to GTB are not covered by the law.

The law guarantees substantive and procedural protections to the accused, including the rights to a jury trial, to an attorney, and to stay proceedings in the Tribal Court to petition for a writ of habeas corpus in a court of the United States.

“The epidemic of violence against Native women has worsened as a result of tribal governments’ forced reliance on distant federal officials for justice. Domestic violence demands a local solution. At long last, we have one,” said Council Chair Sam McClellan. “Tribal law enforcement officers are no longer required to obtain federal permission to arrest a non-Indian who perpetrates domestic violence against an Indian. Bad actors who assault our women are on notice: They will be prosecuted and put in jail.”

For the first time since 1978, when the U.S. Supreme Court stripped tribal governments of their criminal authority over non-Indians in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (VAWA 2013) has authorized Indian tribes to reassert a portion of their inherent governmental authority to investigate, prosecute, convict, and sentence non-Indians who commit crimes in Indian country. The legislation begins the process of eliminating a jurisdictional gap on tribal lands that has for far too long endangered Native men, women, and children by tying the hands of tribal law enforcement.

Approximately twenty tribes around the United States have implemented the jurisdiction. By adding GTB to that list, the Grand Traverse Band Tribal Council demonstrates its commitment to confronting domestic violence, and to reversing the lasting damage it inflicts on Native families.

Ninth Circuit Affirms Mitchell v. Tulalip

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the unpublished opinion in Mitchell v. Tulalip Tribes:

Opinion – Affirming Dismissal

Briefs here.

New Scholarship on IP and Traditional Knowledge in Tribal Codes

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Dalindyebo Bafana Shabalala has posted “Intellectual Property, Traditional Knowledge, and Traditional Cultural Expressions in Native American Tribal Codes” on SSRN.

Here is the abstract:

Indigenous peoples and nations have been making demands for protection and promotion of their intellectual property, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions in domestic and international fora. The power of the basic demand is one that lies in claims of moral duty and human rights. This Article argues that in order for such claims to have power, one of the necessary elements for success is that the demandeurs themselves need to provide such protection within whatever scope of sovereignty that they exercise. In the context of Native American tribes seeking protection for Native American intellectual property under federal law in the broader territory of the United States, this Article argues that a necessary condition for success may be ensuring such protection on their own tribal territory. This Article serves as an early contribution to a broader research agenda aimed at providing more data as a basis for tribal claims for protection of their traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions. It presents a survey of the nature and scope of legal and formal protection that tribal legislation in the United States has provided for traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions. It further surveys and analyzes the nature and scope of protection provided under federal law and assesses the gap between what tribal codes provide and what federal law provides. It then proposes a series of next steps as a research agenda.

New Scholarship on the Tohono O’odham Legal Systems

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Kyle Fields has posted “Tohono O’odham Legal Systems” on SSRN.

Here is the abstract:

This short essay surveys the Tohono O’odham’s legal system through three periods. First, it discusses the traditional O’odham legal system, which relied on himdag (culture or way of life). Second, it reviews how the Spanish, using an inquisitorial system based on Christian religious law, altered the O’odham’s legal system. Third, it analyzes how the secular American adversarial system changed the O’odham’s legal system.

Julia Stinson on Disenrollment as Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Julia M. Stinson has posted “When Tribal Disenrollment Becomes Cruel and Unusual” on SSRN. The article is forthcoming in the Nebraska Law Review. Here is the abstract:

In the past two decades, Native American tribes have disenrolled—permanently removed from tribal citizenship—thousands of tribal members, mainly because of lineage concerns or for political reasons. In these instances, scholars generally decry disenrollment. But there is a growing trend to disenroll tribal citizens for criminal conduct, and scholars (and even tribal members themselves) assume this is proper. This paper argues that tribal disenrollment for criminal conduct violates the Indian Civil Rights Act’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

The Supreme Court held that denationalization as a result of criminal conduct is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Congress applied that same prohibition to Native American tribes in the Indian Civil Rights Act. And traditionally, tribes, who had the inherent power to impose any sanction necessary, focused on restoring harmony rather than punishing offenders; permanent expulsion was almost never imposed. Tribes are nations, and tribal membership is a voluntary compact equivalent in all meaningful respects to United States citizenship—hence, tribes cannot disenroll members for criminal behavior. Yet Congress also severely limited tribes’ ability to punish criminal defendants by capping incarceration at one year, and crime in Indian country is a significant problem. To allow tribes to battle crime and yet protect against cruel and unusual punishment, Congress should remove the limit on incarceration and individual tribal members can decide whether they are willing to submit to their tribe’s inherent power—and greater sentences—or voluntarily renounce their tribal citizenship.