Here are the materials in John v. United States (D. Nev.):
John v. United States
Supreme Court Denies Cert in Alaska v. Jewell — Alaska Subsistence Rights
Very big deal!
Cert stage briefs here:
State of Alaska Petition and Appendix
Lower court materials here.
Cert Opposition Briefs in Katie John Appeal
Here are the opposition briefs in Alaska v. Jewell:
Katie John Cert Opp [A second brief with the appendix: AFN Alaska v Jewell BIO app]
Cert petition here.
Alaska Seeks Supreme Court Review of Alaska Native Susbistence Rights under Katie John
Here is the petition in Alaska v. Jewell:
State of Alaska Petition and Appendix
Questions presented:
1. Whether the Ninth Circuit properly held—in conflict with this Court’s decisions—that the federal reserved water rights doctrine authorizes the unprecedented federal takeover of Alaska’s navigable waters sanctioned by the 1999 Rule.
2. Whether the Ninth Circuit properly proceeded on the premise—which also conflicts with this Court’s decisions—that ANILCA could be interpreted to federalize navigable waters at all given Congress’s silence on the Act’s application to navigable waters.
Lower court materials here.
Ninth Circuit Affirms Katie John Subsistence Rights Ruling
Here is the opinion.
And the court’s syllabus:
The panel affirmed the district court’s decisions upholding the 1999 Final Rules promulgated by the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to implement part of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act concerning subsistence fishing and hunting rights.
In Alaska v. Babbitt, 72 F.3d 698 (9th Cir. 1995) (“Katie John I”), the court held that, because Congress included subsistence fishing in Title VIII, the Act applied to some of Alaska’s navigable waters. The 1999 Rules identified which navigable waters within Alaska constituted “public lands” under Title VIII of the Act, which provides a priority to rural Alaska residents for subsistence hunting and fishing on such lands.
As threshold issues, the panel held that the Secretaries appropriately used notice-and-comment rulemaking, rather than adjudication, to identify whose waters are “public lands” for the purpose of determining the scope of the Act’s rural subsistence policy; and that in construing the term “public lands,” the Secretaries were entitled to “some deference.” The panel concluded that, in the 1999 Rules, the Secretaries applied Katie John I and the federal reserved water rights doctrine in a principled manner. The panel held that it was reasonable for the Secretaries to decide that: the “public lands” subject to the Act’s rural subsistence priority included the waters within and adjacent to federal reservations; and reserved water rights for Alaska Native Settlement allotments were best determined on a case-by-case basis.
Briefs are here.
Lower court materials are here.
Ninth Circuit Briefs in Katie John Subsistence Rights Appeal
Here are the materials in John v. United States:
State Amicus Brief — NM — WY — CO
Brief of Federal Appellees in John v US
Intervenors Response to Alaska
Lower court materials here.
Katie John Subsistence Ruling
An excerpt:
These consolidated cases involve challenges to regulations that were promulgated by the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture on January 8, 1999 (herein “the 1999 final rule”). The regulations primarily implemented a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision that the definition of “public lands” for purposes of Title VIII of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act includes navigable waters in which the United States has an interest by virtue of the reserved water rights doctrine. See Alaska v. Babbitt, 72 F.3d 698, 703-04 (9th Cir. 1995). This decision addresses legal issues flowing from the Secretaries’ application of the reserved water rights doctrine to broad categories of Alaskan waters.
Turtle Talk 