Here:
Hopi Tribe v. EPA Ninth Circuit Petition over Navajo Generating Station Approvals
Here:
Ninth Circuit
Ninth Circuit Reaffirms that Uncounseled Tribal Court Convictions Resulting in Jail Time May Not Be Used to Enhance Federal Sentences
Here is the opinion in United States v. Bryant.
From the court’s syllabus:
The panel reversed the district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss an indictment charging the defendant, an Indian, with two counts of domestic assault by a habitual offender, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 117(a).Applying United States v. Ant, 882 F.2d 1389 (9th Cir. 1989), the panel held that, subject to the narrow exception recognized in case law for statutes that serve merely as enforcement mechanisms for civil disabilities, tribal court convictions may be used in subsequent prosecutions only if the tribal court guarantees a right to counsel that is, at minimum, coextensive with the Sixth Amendment right. Because the defendant’s tribal court domestic abuse convictions would have violated the Sixth Amendment had they been obtained in federal or state court, the panel concluded that it is constitutionally impermissible to use them to establish an element of the offense in a subsequent prosecution under § 117(a), which is an ordinary recidivist statute and not a criminal enforcement scheme for a civil disability.
Concurring, Judge Watford wrote separately to highlight
why Ant warrants reexamination.
Judge Watford correctly notes that a circuit split on this issue has arisen with the Eighth and Tenth Circuits:
It’s perhaps unsurprising that our decision in this case conflicts with decisions from two of our sister circuits. Faced with almost identical scenarios—prior, uncounseled tribal court convictions that would have violated the Sixth Amendment in state or federal court and that were used as predicate offenses under 18 U.S.C. § 117—the Eighth and Tenth Circuits pointedly disagreed with us. See United States v. Cavanaugh, 643 F.3d 592, 595, 604 (8th Cir. 2011); United States v. Shavanaux, 647 F.3d 993, 995–98 (10th Cir. 2011). As our colleagues on the Eighth Circuit noted, “Supreme Court authority in this area is unclear; reasonable decisionmakers may differ in their conclusions as to whether the Sixth Amendment precludes a federal court’s subsequent use of convictions that are valid because and only because they arose in a court where the Sixth Amendment did not apply.” Cavanaugh, 643 F.3d at 605. Given this circuit split and the lack of clarity in this area of Sixth Amendment law, the Supreme Court’s intervention seems warranted.
If nothing else, the case at least may generate support for en banc review. We posted materials on these two cases here (the Supreme Court denied cert). I wrote about this issue a few years ago in a paper titled “Sovereign Comity.“
Here are the briefs:
Ninth Circuit Rejects Treaty Argument in King Mountain Tobacco v. McKenna
The court’s syllabus:
Affirming the district court’s summary judgment, the panel held that the Yakama Treaty of 1855 did not preclude enforcement of the State of Washington’s escrow statute, which requires tobacco companies to place money from cigarette sales into escrow to reimburse the State for health care costs related to the use of tobacco products.
The panel held that Washington’s escrow statute was a nondiscriminatory law and that the activities of King Mountain Tobacco Co., a company owned and operated by an enrolled member of the Yakama Indian Nation, were largely off-reservation. Accordingly, absent express federal law to the contrary, King Mountain was subject to the escrow statute. The panel held that the plain text of the Yakama Treaty did not create a federal exemption from the escrow statute. Specifically, Article II of the Treaty, which established the boundaries of the Yakama reservation and reserved it for Yakama use and benefit, was not an express federal law that exempted King Mountain from the escrow statute. Nor was Article III, which reserved to the tribe the right to travel on public highways and the right to hunt and fish. The panel held that the district court did not err by declining to make findings regarding the Treaty’s meaning to the Yakama people at the time of its signing because the meaning to the Yakama people could not overcome the clear words of the Treaty.
Briefs here.
Ninth Circuit Affirms Title VII Exemption for Tribal Preference in Employment`
Here is the opinion in EEOC v. Peabody Western Coal Co.:
The syllabus:
The panel affirmed the district court’s summary judgment against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with respect to its claim that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited the tribal hiring preference contained in Peabody Western Coal Co. leases with the Navajo Nation.
The panel held that the Navajo hiring preference in the leases was a political classification, rather than a classification based on national origin, and therefore did not violate Title VII. The panel concluded that the district court correctly granted summary judgment to defendants Peabody Western Coal Company and Navajo Nation, and third-party defendant Secretary of the Interior. The panel also held that the EEOC waived on appeal its record-keeping claim. Finally, the panel held that the district court acted within its discretion in denying the EEOC’s eleventh-hour motion to supplement the record with a declaration and documents about Peabody’s hiring practices in 1999.
Friends of Amador County v. Jewell Cert Petition
Here:
Question presented:
Whether, in an action by a third party against the Secretary of the Interior under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 551 et seq., a putative Indian tribe may invoke its sovereign immunity to prevent a court from reviewing the lawfulness of the Secretary’s decision to recognize it as a tribe.
Lower court materials here.
Stay Pending Appeal Denied in Coeur d’Alene Gaming Dispute
Here are the new materials in State of Idaho v. Coeur d’Alene Tribe (D. Idaho):
Big Lagoon En Banc Oral Argument Materials
Ninth Circuit Decides Chemeheuvi Indian Tribe v. Jewell
Here is the opinion.
The court’s syllabus:
The panel affirmed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of the Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior in an action brought by the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe alleging that the Secretary violated the Administrative Procedure Act by determining that the Department of the Interior was not authorized to approve the Tribe’s assignments of land to certain of its members.
The Tribe issued land assignment deeds to some of its members, which the Tribe submitted to the Bureau of Indian Affairs Western Regional Director, seeking approval under 25 U.S.C. § 81 (2000) (“Section 81”). The Interior Board of Indian Appeals concluded that the deeds could not be approved under Section 81 because doing so would violate 25 U.S.C. § 177 (“Section 177”).
The panel applied Chevron analysis, and at step one of the analysis, held that the plain language of Section 81 and Section 177 revealed that Congress did not intend for the Secretary of the Interior to approve agreements under Section 81 that would otherwise be prohibited by Section 177. The panel held that Section 177 prohibited the conveyance of land from an Indian Tribe unless approved by Congress, and Congress had not approved the transaction at issue here. The panel concluded that the Secretary of the Interior properly denied approval of the deeds under Section 81 because such conveyances would violate federal law.
Briefs and lower court materials here.
Ninth Circuit to Video Stream En banc Arguments in Big Lagoon Rancheria Gaming Matter (Sept. 17, 2014)
Here is the news release. An excerpt:
On Wednesday, September 17, 2014, beginning at 10 a.m., the court will hear oral arguments in Big Lagoon Rancheria v. State of California, in which the state appeals the summary judgment by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in favor of Big Lagoon Rancheria, an Indian reservation near Eureka. The lower court determined that the state violated the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act by failing to negotiate in good faith for a tribal-state gaming compact.
Here is the panel: Alex Kozinski, Harry Pregerson, Stephen Reinhardt, Diarmuid O’Scannlain, Susan Graber, William Fletcher, Richard Paez, Jay S. Bybee, Milan Smith, Morgan Christen, and Jacqueline Nguyen
En banc materials here.
Panel materials here.
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