Seneca Nation of Indians

Michigan COA Decides Another ICWA Notice Case

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion:

Brent COA Opinion

An excerpt:

The record reveals that petitioner investigated N. Brent’s claim that his uncle was an “Alleganian Indian” by notifying the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Petitioner received a response from the United States Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs stating that “there is not a federally recognized Alleganian tribe.” On appeal, respondents argue that petitioner should have understood that the Allegany Indian Reservation is not a tribe, but a reservation occupied by Seneca and Cayuga Indians, however there is no indication that respondents conveyed this information to petitioner. Regardless, this issue is now moot. An issue becomes moot when a subsequent event renders it impossible for the appellate court to fashion a remedy. Kieta v Thomas M Cooley Law Sch, 290 Mich App 144, 147; 799 NW2d 579 (2010). The remedy for a violation of the ICWA would be to remand to the trial court “for the purpose of providing proper notice to any interested Indian tribe pursuant to the ICWA.” See In re IEM, 233 Mich App 438, 456; 592 NW2d 751 (1999). The trial court has already terminated its jurisdiction over the children. Because the trial court no longer has jurisdiction, there is no longer any party seeking either foster care placement or termination of parental rights. 25 USCA 1912(a). The remedy of transferring proceedings to a tribe unless the tribe declines jurisdiction, 25 USCA 1911(b), is no longer necessary because the proceedings have been concluded.

News Coverage of Attack on State Senator and Wife at Seneca

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

Oneida’s Tax Claims against New York Dismissed without Prejudice

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here are the materials on remand from the Second Circuit in Oneida Indian Nation v. Paterson (N.D. N.Y.):

DCT Order Dismissing without Prejudice

OIN Motion to Dismiss without Prejudice

NY Opposition to OIN Motion

NY Motion for Summary J

OIN Opposition to NY Motion

NY Reply

The Second Circuit’s remand and materials are here.

Native Wholesale Supply Bankruptcy Filings

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

NWS Bankruptcy Complaint

NWS Motion for PI

Judge Lamberth Enjoins PACT Act in Gordon v. Holder

Matthew L.M. Fletcher4 Comments

Here is the BLT coverage. And the materials:

Gordon Motion for PI

USA Response

City of New York Amicus Brief

Convenience Stores Amicus Brief

Public Citizen Litigation Group Amicus

Gordon Reply [includes significant attachments]

USA Reply

DCT Order Enjoining PACT Act

Drama at Seneca

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

Second Circuit Affirms Preliminary Injunction against Enforcement of PACT Act against Red Earth LLC

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is today’s opinion in Red Earth LLC v. United States: 10-3165_opn

An excerpt:

Appeal from an order of the Western District of New York (Richard J. Arcara, Judge) granting a preliminary injunction to stay enforcement of provisions of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act (“PACT Act”) that require mail-order cigarette sellers to pay state excise taxes.  The government argues that the district court erred in concluding that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that the PACT Act’s provision requiring out-of-state tobacco sellers to pay state excise taxes regardless of their contact with that state violates due process.  We affirm the district court’s order granting the preliminary injunction.

Briefs are here and here and here.

Seneca Nation President Porter Featured on All Things Considered Today

Kate Fort1 Comment

Here.  The audio is available after 7pm today.

“The difference today, unlike in times past, is that we are often dictating the terms and we are no longer being at the short end of someone else’s decision.”

– Robert Odawi Porter, president of the Seneca Nation

Sixty years ago, the road meandered past thriving communities, with Seneca homes along the Alleghany River, hunting and fishing grounds, cemeteries, churches, schools.

But in the 1960s, the U.S. government decided it needed the land to control flooding downriver in Pittsburgh. The Army Corps of Engineers condemned the villages, burnt down the houses and schools and churches, and built the Kinzua hydropower dam. The Senecas had fought the plan in Washington for almost two decades.

“They had been burning other people’s homes, but our home — my father burned it,” says Steve Gordon, who was 12 at the time. He says his father wouldn’t let the federal government set his house afire. “So my dad loaded us all up in his vehicle and took us down there and we watched it burn to the ground, cause if anybody’s going to burn our house, it’ll be us,” Gordon says.

Porter was 2 years old when Kinzua was built. He says he grew up like all Senecas at the time.

“No one had any money growing up,” he says. “I mean, this was on the heels of the Kinzua era. No real jobs. The Nation government had no economic presence.”

NYTs on New York’s Thruway Dispute with Seneca Nation

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

An excerpt:

Over the last few weeks, this stretch of highway has emerged as the unlikely flash point in escalating disputes between the Seneca Nation of Indians and the State of New York — disputes over sovereignty, and money, that have led the tribe to seek the intervention of President Obama and have twice prompted Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to send high-level delegations to western New York in an effort to make peace. The tribe, saying that its leadership was pressured 57 years ago into accepting a one-time payment of $75,000 to allow the Thruway to cross its Cattaraugus reservation, is now dunning the state for more than $80 million — $1 for every vehicle that has crossed the reservation on the Gov. Thomas E. Dewey Thruway since 2007. The state, in turn, is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars it says the tribe owes as a share of its cigarette sales and gambling proceeds.

Radio Profile of Seneca Pres. Robert Porter

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Via Pechanga, here it is.

An excerpt:

Porter’s a big guy at 6-foot-4.  He has graying hair.  He’s dressed casually for a president in a striped button-down and khakis.

Porter says Senecas enjoy universal health care, college tuition assistance, subsidized day care, new sports complexes.  For a few years, there was even a program that paid Senecas 1400 dollars a year to lose weight.

In New York State, the Senecas and other native tribes are often portrayed as villains, getting rich off gambling and tobacco addicts.

Porter bristles at that criticism.

Right when we’re starting to recover from a couple hundred years of deprivation, I’ve even had members of Congress, their staff, tell us, y’know, you guys really should be getting into something else.  This is really not something you should be doing, and I just can’t believe the hypocrisy of that.

Porter says some of the largest corporations in the U.S. are in the same industries.  Almost all states raise money with lotteries.

Porter’s sued New York several times to prevent the state from taxing native tobacco sales.  He’s pressing the state to pay millions in rent for two Interstates that cross Seneca land.  Yet somehow, he hasn’t made many enemies.