Turtle Talk

Petitioners, the Honorable Greg Treat, Senate President Pro Tempore, and the Honorable Charles McCall, Speaker of the House, request the Court to assume original jurisdiction to declare that the new tribal gaming compacts between the State and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians and between the State and the Kialegee Tribal Town are invalid under Oklahoma law. The Court assumes original jurisdiction. Okla. Const. art. VII, § 4. The Court invokes its publici juris doctrine to assume original jurisdiction here as Petitioners have presented this Court with an issue of public interest in urgent need of judicial determination. Fent v. Contingency Review Bd., 2007 OK 27, ¶ 11, 163 P.3d 512, 521. The Court grants the declaratory relief sought by Petitioners, as the Executive branch did not validly enter into the new tribal gaming compacts with the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians and the Kialegee Tribal Town. Ethics Comm’n of State of Okla. v. Cullison, 1993 OK 37, ¶ 4, 850 P.2d 1069, 1072.

California COA Rejects Immovable Property Exception to Tribal Immunity

January 27, 2021Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion in Self v. Cher-AE Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad Rancheria:

California COA Opinion

Briefs:

Opening Brief

Response Brief

Federal Court Orders Exhaustion in Suit Arising Out of Death of Yakama Citizen

January 27, 2021March 15, 2021Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are the materials in United Financial Casualty Company v. Spencer Trucking LLC (E.D. Wash.):

14 Motion for Summary Judgment

17 Second Motion to Dismiss

22 DCT Order

WaPo: “Wealthy couple chartered a plane to the Yukon, took vaccines doses meant for Indigenous elders, authorities said”

January 26, 2021Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

D.C. Circuit Affirms Order that DAPL Easement is Illegal, but Does Not Require Shutdown of Pipeline

January 26, 2021Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion in Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. United States Army Corps of Engineers.

An excerpt:

Lake Oahe, created when the United States Army Corps of Engineers flooded thousands of acres of Sioux lands in the Dakotas by constructing the Oahe Dam on the Missouri River, provides several successor tribes of the Great Sioux Nation with water for drinking, industry, and sacred cultural practices. Passing beneath Lake Oahe’s waters, the Dakota Access Pipeline transports crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. Under the Mineral Leasing Act, 30 U.S.C. § 185, the pipeline could not traverse the federally owned land at the Oahe crossing site without an easement from the Corps. The question presented here is whether the Corps
violated the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4321, by issuing that easement without preparing an environmental impact statement despite substantial criticisms from the Tribes and, if so, what should be done about that failure. We agree with the district court that the Corps acted unlawfully, and we affirm the court’s order vacating the easement while the Corps prepares an environmental impact statement. But we reverse the court’s order to the extent it directed that the pipeline be shut down and emptied of oil.

Briefs here.