Here is the unpublished opinion in Texas v. Ysleta del Sur Pueblo. [Not sure at all why this opinion is not worthy of publication. Maybe in the Fifth Circuit, Indian tribes are placed in criminal contempt all the time.]
And here are the briefs:
And here are the lower court materials.
Incredible opinion: Arocha Opinion July 9, 2010.
Here are the materials.
Here is the opinion in United States v. Garza, and a news article (via Pechanga) on the case.
Another Mario Gonzales sighting!
Here — ACLU of TX Needville Appeal
You can access all of the briefs at the Supreme Court Project website.
From the Seattle Examiner:
A Native American boy is fighting a Texas school district for the right to keep his long hair. A small rural school district in Fort Bend County Texas wants to force Adriel Arocha to cut his hair in compliance with the terms of the school district’s dress code.
Hence, the Needville school district and a determined mother are tangled in a dispute over hair. Michelle Betenbaugh says her son, Adriel Arocha, wears his hair long because of religious beliefs tied to his Native American heritage. The dispute began last summer, when Kenney Arocha and Michelle Betenbaugh informed Needville ISD officials of their plans to move from Stafford and have their son, Adriel Arocha, attend kindergarten in the district.
Made aware of the couple’s and the boy’s views on the practice by some Native American men of wearing their hair long, school officials told Adriel’s parents he would have to cut his hair according to terms in Needville ISD’s dress code. The parents refused, and a drawn out court battle followed.
We filed a short amicus brief in A.A. v. Needville Indep. Sch. District before the Fifth Circuit (Needville-Historian Amicus Brief) on behalf of Drs. Suzanne Cross and K. Tsianina Lomawaima. The Lipan Apache Tribe also filed an amicus brief (Lipan Apache 5th Cir Amicus 2009).
The ACLU of Texas is lead counsel in this case, a challenge to a Texas public school’s decision to suspend a kindergarden student because he refused to cut his long hair. He is a member of the Lipan Apache Tribe. The family was successful before the district court, but the school district appealed.
Other materials:
We filed a short amicus brief in A.A. v. Needville Indep. Sch. District before the Fifth Circuit (Needville-Historian Amicus Brief) on behalf of Drs. Suzanne Cross and K. Tsianina Lomawaima.
The ACLU of Texas is lead counsel in this case, a challenge to a Texas public school’s decision to suspend a kindergarden student because he refused to cut his long hair. He is a member of the Lipan Apache Tribe. The family was successful before the district court, but the school district appealed.
Other materials:
If anyone is intersted in working on or joining a brief focusing on the American Indian community’s interest in this case, please contact Fleming Terrell at FTerrell@aclutx.org<mailto:FTerrell@aclutx.org> or (512) 478-7300 ext. 128.
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas and the national ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief are seeking amicus support in defending against an Fifth Circuit appeal that threatens the fundamental freedoms of religious practice and expression for Texas schoolchildren, particularly those of American Indian descent. The case is Needville Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Arocha, No. 09-20091 (5th Cir.), on appeal from A.A. et al. v. Needville Indep. Sch. Dist., No. H-08-2934 (S.D.Tx. Jan. 20, 2008).
The State of Texas filed its opposition to the cert petition filed by the Kickapoo Tribe way back in February. Here is the brief — texas-cert-opp
And here is our previous post on the lower court portion of this case (with briefs), as well as a link to the Supreme Court Project’s site.
If you’ll recall, despite a USSG recommendation to deny the petition, the Court still asked for a response from the State.
Mildly interesting development in the Kickapoo case regarding the CA5’s decision to strike down the so-called Class III procedures (aka the “Seminole” fix). Kickapoo filed the cert petition, a tribal amicus brief supported the petition, but then Texas declined to respond (which is a respondent’s prerogative, especially in a case where there does not appear to be a clean circuit split). The US, the defendant in the original case, filed a brief urging the SCT to decline the case, although the brief went into detail into just how wrong the government thought the CA5 decision was.
Now the Court has asked for Texas to respond. In my limited experience with the Court’s internal dynamics, the Court might do this as a means of delaying a decision on a cert petition, but for what, in this case, I don’t know.
Turtle Talk 
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