Sandia Pueblo

Federal Court Holds State Highway on Sandia Pueblo is Indian Country

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are the materials in United States v. Antonio (D.N.M.):

62 Motion to Dismiss

68 Response

84 DCT Order

An excerpt:

THIS MATTER comes before the Court on the Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Federal Subject Matter Jurisdiction, filed April 10, 2017 (Doc. 62)(“Motion”). The Court held an evidentiary hearing on April 11, 2017, and a hearing on April 12, 2017. The primary issue is whether the Court has jurisdiction over this matter under the Indian Pueblo Land Act Amendments of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-133, 119 Stat. 2573 (Dec. 20, 2005), codified at 25 U.S.C. § 331 Note, because the automobile collision giving rise to Plaintiff United States of America’s criminal prosecution against Defendant Jeffrey Antonio, which occurred on private land, nonetheless occurred within the exterior boundaries of the 1748 Spanish land grant to the Sandia Pueblo, which Congress confirmed in the Act of December 22, 1858, 11 Stat. 374, 374 (1859). The Court concludes: (i) the automobile collision giving rise to this criminal cause of action occurred within the exterior boundaries of the 1748 Spanish land grant; and, consequently, (ii) under 25 U.S.C. § 331 Note, the Court has jurisdiction over this matter. Accordingly, the Court denies Antonio’s Motion.

NYTs: “Running from Despair” — Profile of Wings of America

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the NYTs:

SANTA FE, N.M. — On a cold Saturday morning last month, 16-year-old Chantel Hunt ran across a highway onto a gravel road where the snow under her shoes packed into washboard ripples. She ran around a towering red rock butte, past two old mattresses dumped on the roadside, and into the shadow of a mesa she sometimes runs on top of.

Hunt, a high school junior and a resident of the Navajo Nation, was on a short training run for the national cross-country championships being held Saturday in San Diego. Her team, Wings of America, has risen to prominence with an unlikely collection of athletes. It is a group of American Indians from reservations around the country, and a Wings team has won a boys or a girls national title 20 times since first attending a championship meet in 1988.

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