The case is McCracken and Amick Inc v. Perdue. Appellate court materials are here. The original trial court order is here.
Here are the briefs so far:
McCracken and Amick Petition for Discretionary Review
M&A Reply coming soon!
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
UN Special Rapporteur Investigates Epidemic of Violence Against Indian Women in the United States
CHEROKEE, N.C. — At 64 years-old, Matilda Black Bear, better known as Tillie, refers to herself as a “classic case” in regards to her story of domestic violence. She was 26 years old when she entered into a relationship that turned violent. She knew after the first week that she had to get out, but it took her three years to leave.
“In the ’70s there were no services for victims, let alone any laws to hold perpetrators accountable,” recalls Tillie. “I went to the police and to the judges and they didn’t know what to do with me.”
According to U.S. Department of Justice Statistics, not much has changed in nearly 40 years. Tillie’s story is shared by thousands of Native women in the United States. One out of three Native women will be raped in her lifetime, and three out of four will be physically assaulted.
These staggering statistics were presented, along with a plea for help, to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Ms. Rashida Manjoo. Manjoo visited the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in Cherokee, North Carolina on Jan. 28-29, 2011. Continue reading
NLRB Declines Jurisdiction over Eastern Band Cherokee Indian Hospital
Tribal Per Caps Make Some Indians Healthier
From Indianz (JAMA Study on Per Caps and Health):
Members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who received per capita payments from the tribe’s casino were less likely to abuse alcohol and marijuana, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Tribal members began receiving a share of gaming revenues in 1996. The study tracked Eastern Cherokee youth from 1993 through 2006 and found a link between well-being and the payments.
Tribal youth were better off as adults than older tribal members who did not grow up with the revenues, according to the study. And tribal youth fared “significantly” better as adults than non-Indians, researchers found.
The tribe operates the Harrah’s Cherokee Hotel and Casino in western North Carolina.
Get the Story:
Nc American Indians With Casino Income Fare Better (AP 5/18)
Eastern Band Cherokee Member Challenges Federal Garnishment of Gaming Per Caps
This is an interesting case to watch, United States v. Lambert, in the Fourth Circuit. Here is the opening brief:
UPDATE: CA4 Opinion
Here is a similar case involving the Eastern Band’s efforts to raise sovereign immunity (materials here). The Lambert case is the direct challenge to the garnishment by a convict.
Eastern Band Cherokee Judge Saunooke Article on Diversity on Federal Bench
Here, in the ABA’s Judges’ Journal, from Mike McBride: Saunooke Article
Here are other articles from the same issue re: judicial diversity:
An Interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
By Suzanne Reynolds
Racial and Gender Diversity on State Courts: An AJS Study
By Malia Reddick, Michael J. Nelson, and Rachel Paine Caufield
A Bench That Looks Like America: Diversity Among Appointed State Court Judges
By Ciara Torres-Spelliscy
N. Carolina Appellate Court Upholds Poker Ban, Eastern Band Cherokee Gaming Compact
Here is the opinion in McCracken and Amick v. Perdue. News coverage here, via Pechanga.
An excerpt:
The State appeals from the trial court’s order entering judgment in favor of plaintiffs McCracken and Amick, Incorporated,doing business as The New Vemco Music Co., and its principal owner, Ralph Amick, on their claim that the State is not permitted under federal Indian gaming law to grant the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina (“the Tribe”) exclusive rights to conduct certain gaming on tribal land while prohibiting it throughout the rest of the State. We conclude, however, that state law providing the Tribe with exclusive gaming rights does not violate federal Indian gaming law. Consequently, we reverse the trial court’s order.
The state’s briefs are here (as well as the trial court opinion). Other briefs:
Challenge to N.C. Video Poker Ban Heard in State Appellate Court
This case involved, if I recall correctly, a sort-of equal protection challenge to a state video poker ban in North Carolina on grounds that the N.C. tribes have gaming compacts, etc. Lower court opinion here.
Appeals court judges hearing arguments Wednesday on the legality of North Carolina’s video poker ban sounded wary of negating the will of the General Assembly when it granted an exception to machines on the Cherokee Indian reservation.
Two of the three judges on the panel of the state Court of Appeals, which considered a Wake County judge’s ruling earlier this year that overturned the 2006 law, peppered an attorney for an amusement machine vendor with questions about why it should step into a legislative policy question.
Video poker machines could be permitted again in all 100 counties should the lower court keep the ruling in place.
“I always thought that the Legislature set public policy,” Judge Robert Hunter of Marion asked Hugh Stevens, representing vendor McCracken and Amick Inc., which sued over the ban. “You seem to argue that this is somehow contrary to the public policy of the state.” Continue reading
McCracken v. Easley — N.C. Court Says IGRA Doesn’t Allow State to Ban Video Poker
Here is the opinion in McCracken v. Easley — mccracken-v-easley (via Pechanga and TV):
Strange case. Without any discussion except one sentence, the court struck down a state law ban on video poker, a ban that excluded tribal gaming in accordance with a Class III compact. The sentence is: “IGRA does not permit a state to ban the possession and operation of video gaming machines elsewhere in the state while allowing their possession and operation on tribal lands.”
I’d like to see the briefs, but all I can say is … baffling. Of course IGRA allows exactly this kind of law. IGRA allows tribes to negotiate and execute Class III compacts with states that have not banned gaming outright. And even if the state bans all gaming post-Class III compact, the compact will continue until it expires.
Hon. J. Matthew Martin (Eastern Band Cherokee) on FTCA “Law of the Place”
Judge Martin of the Eastern Band Cherokee tribal court has published “Federal Malpractice in Indian Country and the ‘Law of the Place’: A Re-examination of Williams v. United States Under Existing Law of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians” in the Campbell Law Review.
Turtle Talk 
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