This is the IGRA good faith suit brought by the tribe in the Northern District of Florida:
Seminole Tribe v. Florida
Clinton White House Papers Release — Seminole Tribe v. Florida & Other Indian Matters
Florida Jurisdictional Brief in Seminole Tax Dispute
Seminole Tribe v. Florida: Petition for Review in Fla. SCT over Taxes
Justice Stevens Critical of Seminole Tribe v. Florida & Sovereign Immunity
In his new book, according to the National Law Journal’s Marcia Coyle, Justice Stevens levels strong criticism at the Supreme Court’s decision in Seminole Tribe v. Florida:
The tenor of the Court’s deliberations changed immediately when William Rehnquist became chief justice, according to Stevens. Rehnquist, he writes, was an impartial presiding officer and meticulous in noting the justices’ different positions on issues in each argued case. But Stevens levels some of the book’s sharpest criticism on Rehnquist’s decisions involving state sovereign immunity. Stevens considers the first in a line of 11th Amendment rulings — Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida — one of the Court’s worst rulings in his nearly 35 years. In an interview withThe National Law Journal, he explained that sovereign immunity is a “doctrine of injustice.”
And he calls the retirement of Thurgood Marshall, the “most significant judicial event” of Rehnquist’s tenure as chief, not only because of Marshall’s contributions to the Court’s conference but because of the changes in the Court’s jurisprudence attributable to the votes of his successor, Clarence Thomas.
Boston Globe: Souter Surprised Conservatives with Dissent in Seminole Tribe
From the Boston Globe:
When he was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1990, David H. Souter vowed to uphold the “original intent” of the Constitution, words that his backers interpreted to mean he would join the court’s conservative bloc to support states’ rights and limit the reach of federal power.
But as a Supreme Court justice, Souter has often infuriated his initial supporters by repeatedly siding with the court’s liberal wing on issues from abortion to crime, all the while arguing that the founders would have supported his interpretations.
Indeed, legal scholars said, Souter’s two most significant legacies on the court have been his resistance to the erosion of federal power in the 1990s and his insistence that there need not be a conflict between respecting the founders’ intent and backing liberal causes.
Souter’s writing “shows us you can be an originalist without being a conservative,” said Linda Coberly, a Chicago lawyer and former Supreme Court clerk.
Turtle Talk 