Ninth Circuit – Page 20

1. Whether, in 1994, Congress eliminated the distinction between “historic tribes” and “created tribes” and, thereby, eliminated the requirement that a tribe must have pre-existed the United States to have tribal immunity

2. Whether the JIV, which became a quarter-blood Indian group in 1996, is a federally recognized tribe, with tribal immunity, by virtue of the fact that it is still on the list of “Indian tribal entities” eligible to receive BIA services.

Lower court materials here.

Oral Argument in Appeal re: Tribal Sovereign Immunity Under the Clean Water Act

May 9, 2021Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

Briefs here.

Ninth Circuit Briefs in Federal Prosecution of Former Tribal Consultant Org’s Employee

May 6, 2021Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are the materials in United States v. Polequaptewa:

Opening Brief

Government’s Answer Brief

Oral argument video:

Ninth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Nooksack Disenrollees’ RICO Suit

May 5, 2021Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the unpublished opinion in Rabang v. Kelly.

Briefs here.

Ninth Circuit Restores Navajo Nation’s Water Rights Trust Breach Suit

April 28, 2021Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion in Navajo Nation v. Dept. of the Interior. Briefs here.

An excerpt:

Moreover, neither Morongo nor Gros Ventre nor Jicarilla involved claims to vindicate Winters rights, which provide the foundation of the Nation’s claim here. Unlike the plaintiffs in those cases, the Nation, in pointing to its reserved water rights, has identified specific treaty, statutory, and regulatory provisions that impose fiduciary obligations on Federal Appellees—namely, those provisions of the Nation’s various treaties and related statutes and executive orders that establish the Navajo Reservation and, under the long-established Winters doctrine, give rise to implied water rights to make the reservation viable.

*. * *

We hold in particular that, under Winters, Federal Appellees have a duty to protect the Nation’s water supply that arises, in part, from specific provisions in the 1868 Treaty that contemplated farming by the members of the Reservation.