From Indianz: “Citing the “disruptive nature” of the Shinnecock Nation’s attempts to assert sovereignty, a federal judge on Tuesday blocked the New York tribe from opening a gaming facility on ancestral land. The tribe has lived on Long Island for thousands of years. Its reservation, located in the heart of the wealthy enclave known as the Hamptons, is recognized by the state as sovereign land. But in a 129-page ruling, Judge Joseph F. Bianco said a disputed parcel outside the eservation is not sovereign territory. Though the tribe owns the “Westwoods” land in fee, it lost aboriginal title hundreds of years ago, the lengthy decision stated. Bianco, a Bush appointee, said “the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrated in a plain and unambiguous manner that aboriginal title held by the Westwoods land was extinguished in the 17th century.” Yet even if aboriginal title still existed, Bianco said the tribe can’t use the site for gaming due to the “highly disruptive consequences” of the proposed 61,000-square-foot casino. Nearly 20 pages of the opinion were dedicated to the impacts of gaming on the environment, traffic, health and safety. To back up his reasoning, Bianco cited a recent U.S. Supreme Court case that has hurt several tribes as they pursue their land and sovereignty claims in New York. The Sherrill case required the Oneida Nation to go through the land-into-trust process before asserting sovereignty over properties within its ancestral reservation. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has since used the decision to throw out a land claim by the Cayuga Nation and the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe. In his ruling, Bianco said Sherrill has “dramatically altered the legal landscape” of tribal claims. “The 2005 decision of the United States Supreme Court in Sherrill set forth the legal framework under which a court must examine equitable doctrines in the context of an attempt by an Indian tribe to re-assert sovereignty over a parcel of land,” Bianco wrote.”

This case raised very narrow issues, but some of the issues have resonance throughout Indian Country. First, the court held that there is no common law right for Indian tribes to operating gaming facilities outside of the framework established by IGRA. Second, implicitly, the court held that Indian tribes cannot operate gaming facilities on fee land off the reservation. These are not terribly important questions, except to tribes with no usable land and to non-recognized or state-recognized tribes.
The opinions are here:

Gaming Court Decision (October 31, 2007):
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Land Claim Court Decision:
Shinnecock Nation v. New York (November 28, 2006)

Federal Recognition Court Decision:
New York v. Shinnecock Nation (November 7, 2005)