On Friday, August 11, 2023, United States District Judge David Nuffer of the United States District Court of the District of Utah granted motions to dismiss the cases challenging the Bears Ears National Monument designation.
Here is the Order:
Previous post with briefs here and here.
Bears Ears at Sunset. Photo credit: Tim Peterson.
“We live here. We engage the community here. We have an understanding of the crimes and the crime scenes, and we have Hopi juries here, and it gives us an advantage in that there are some cases I believe the tribal courts can more effectively prosecute,” she [Jill Engel] says.
Saying the Navajo Nation is ignoring its obligations, the Hopi Tribe wants a federal judge to order that its members be allowed onto Navajo lands for religious purposes.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court here claims the Navajos agreed in 2006 to permit Hopi religious practitioners to engage in certain practices in designated areas of the Navajo Nation. That includes the “sacred gathering of golden eagles.”
Attorney Timothy Macdonald said those sites even are set out on a map.
But Macdonald, in the lawsuit made available Tuesday, said the Navajo Nation is preventing Hopi tribal members from going on to some of those sites because they are on specific “allotments.” Those are parcels of land held by the federal government for individual Navajos.
It even got to the point where a member of the Hopi Tribe was arrested last year, he said.
A bid to have the dispute resolved by a special Joint Commission went nowhere, Macdonald said, when the panel concluded it lacks jurisdiction over individual allotments.
So Macdonald now wants U.S. District Court Judge Paul Rosenblatt to block the Navajo Nation from taking any action to keep Hopi religious practitioners from the specified areas. And if Rosenblatt won’t do that, Macdonald wants him to rule that the Joint Commission can make a decision.
Harrison Tsosie, the Navajo Nation attorney general, said Tuesday he is still studying the case but said the allotments are “off limits” to Hopi religious practitioners. He also said those areas were not part of the 2006 agreement and that the sites in question are not on the map.
Hopi Tribe v. Navajo Nation – Complaint 07-05-13 copy.
Link to the news article here.
Here.
This case involved a request for relocation assistance in the context of the Navajo Hopi relocation process. The Office declined to provide assistance, but the tribal member won in court.
Here are the materials:
Indianz.com published the rehearing petitions from the US and the Arizona Snowbowl operators and the oppositions from the Hualapai, Navajo, and Hopi tribes all in one document, here.
Our previous post on this case, with all the materials from the earlier 9th Circuit proceedings (again courtesy of Indianz) is here.
From Indianz.com:
The sacred San Francisco Peaks in Arizona. Photo Deborah Lee Soltesz/U.S. Geological Survey.
Court Order:
Navajo Nation v. US Forest Service (October 17, 2007)
Earlier Decision:
Navajo Nation v. US Forest Service (March 12, 2007)
Listen to Oral Arguments:
Navajo Nation v. Forest Service (September 14, 2006)
Appeals Court Documents:
Opening Brief [Word DOC] | Reply Brief [Word DOC]
Lower Court Decision:
Navajo Nation v. US Forest Service (January 11, 2006)
Approval Documents:
Final Environmental Impact Statement for Arizona Snowbowl Facilities Improvement | Forest Service Approves Snowmaking at Arizona Snowbowl
Relevant Links:
Save the Peaks Coalition – http://www.savethepeaks.org
Coconino National Forest – http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/coconino/index.shtml
For academic scholarship on sacred sites, see Kristen A. Carpenter’s work here.
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