Here are the materials in Dreaming Bear v. Fleming (D. S.D.) (news article here via Pechanga):
DCT Order Denying Dreaming Bear Motion for Injunction
First Amendment
ACLU Brief Supporting Ward Churchill in Colo. Court of Appeals
It’s purely a First Amendment argument.
Here.
Update on Challenge to Michigan Gaming Control and Revenue Act
Northville Downs’ opening brief before the Sixth Circuit in its challenge to the constitutionality of the Michigan’s Proposal E, barring additional, non-Indian gaming facilities in Michigan absent a state-wide referendum is here — Northville Downs Appellant Brief
In late February, the Eastern District of Michigan (Cohn, J.) rejected a constitutional challenge to Michigan Const. art. IV, section 41, otherwise known as Proposal E, and the Michigan Gaming Control and Revenue Act. Here are the pleadings in Northville Downs v. Granholm.
northville-response-to-motion-to-dismiss [response begins around page 27, the rest is an amended complaint]
Salon on Ward Churchill Verdict
From Salon:
Last week, a Denver jury found that Ward Churchill, the former head of the ethnic studies department at the University of Colorado, had been improperly fired and awarded him $1 in damages. A judge must now decide whether Churchill should be reinstated in his job or receive back wages. The verdict was justified, but Churchill’s victory offers scant cause for celebration. To put it mildly, Churchill was not an ideal poster child for the cause of academic freedom. If right-wing critics of the university had set out to create a perfect caricature of a tenured radical who sacrifices scholarship for advocacy, they couldn’t have come up with a better one than Churchill. The Churchill case was a train wreck pitting the First Amendment against academic standards in a zero-sum game.
The debacle began the day after the 9/11 attacks, when Churchill, a widely read and influential activist scholar who specializes in American Indian issues, published an essay, “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens.” Churchill argued that the 9/11 attacks were payback for America’s ongoing “crusade” against the Arab-Muslim world, an onslaught manifested in such actions as the decade-long sanctions against Iraq that are estimated to have cost the lives of 500,000 Iraqi children.
Judge Cohn Rejects Challenge to Michigan Gaming Control and Revenue Act
The Eastern District of Michigan rejected a constitutional challenge to Michigan Const. art. IV, section 41, otherwise known as Proposal E, and the Michigan Gaming Control and Revenue Act. Here are the pleadings in Northville Downs v. Granholm.
northville-response-to-motion-to-dismiss [response begins around page 27, the rest is an amended complaint]
Boney v. Valline — Suit re: Police Liability under Self-Determination Act & FTCA
Here is the opinion in this case — boney-v-valline-dct-order — where the District of Nevada held that a tribal officer who employed deadly force was enforcing tribal law, and so could not be liable under the FTCA or the Self-Determination Act.
Here are the materials:
Geoffrey Feiger Loses Free Speech Claim in Sixth Circuit
From How Appealing:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has today issued its ruling in Geoffrey Fieger v. Michigan Supreme Court: Today’s ruling begins:
After a panel of judges on the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed a $15 million judgment initially entered in favor of his client, and while the case was pending before the court, attorney Geoffrey Nels Fieger made vulgar comments about the judges on a radio show he hosted.
The majority on a divided three-judge panel reached the following holding:
We vacate the judgment of the district court and remand with instructions to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. We hold that Fieger and Steinberg lack standing because they have failed to demonstrate actual present harm or a significant possibility of future harm based on a single, stipulated reprimand; they have not articulated, with any degree of specificity, their intended speech and conduct; and they have not sufficiently established a threat of future sanction under the narrow construction of the challenged provisions applied by the Michigan Supreme Court. For these same reasons, we also hold that the district court abused its discretion in entering declaratory relief.
Patrick Garry et al. on Tribal Incorporation of First Amendment Norms
Patrick M. Garry (South Dakota), Candice Spurling (South Dakota), Jennifer Keating (South Dakota), and Derek Nelson (South Dakota) have posted “Tribal Incorporation of First Amendment Norms: A Case Study of the Indian Tribes of South Dakota” on SSRN, recently published in the South Dakota Law Review.
From the abstract:
This article analyzes how Indian tribal courts have incorporated First Amendment norms within tribal legal systems. Given the more traditionally communal nature of tribal societies, Indian tribal courts have taken a slightly different approach to the kind of individual rights articulated in the First Amendment. As this article demonstrates, tribal courts have elevated community interest and values when considering individual rights issues. The ways in which those interests and values have been elevated may prove instructive to those who advocate a more balanced approach to First Amendment freedoms within the U.S. judicial system.
The article examines the legal obligation imposed on Indian tribes to protect certain individual rights, and whether the First Amendment applies to Indian tribes, and finally how the Indian Civil Rights Act applies. The article analyzes how federal courts have interpreted the Indian Civil Rights Act and surveys Indian tribal court decisions concerning individual rights issues such as free speech, free press, and free exercise of religion.
The final part of the article analysis turns away from reported tribal court decisions and focuses on tribal political, social, and cultural issues relating to First Amendment-type rights. In this respect, the article focuses exclusively on the nine tribes of South Dakota, exploring how First Amendment-type issues have arisen within those tribes and how they have been resolved outside of the judicial system.
U.S. v. Hunter et al. — IGRA Criminal Case — Coyote Valley
United States v. Hunter, No. 06-565 (N.D. Cal.), is an unusual case. In 2001, it appears that the National Indian Gaming Commission investigated the improper expenditure of Indian gaming revenues by tribal council members at Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians. They reached a settlement and consent decree (attached as Exh. A to Deft. Crabtree’s Motion to Dismiss below).
In short, tribal council members allegedly continued their bad behavior — using gaming revenues to buy first class plane tickets, donate to political causes, and other uses. The US then brought a criminal case, alleging violation of IGRA (as a criminal matter) when these council members (Hunter et al.) spent gaming revenues on political causes and first class tickets.
What?!?!
Thanksgiving at Public Schools — 1st Amendment Case
In Doe v. Wilson County School System, a federal district court judge ordered a trial on the question of whether a thanksgiving day teaching unit featuring a prayer by pilgrims violated the First Amendment:
Turtle Talk 
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