Supreme Court

Larry Plamondon and the “Keith Case”

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

We had the pleasure of hearing the story of Larry Plamondon, a member of the Grand River Band of Ottawa Indians, who was the defendant in the famous “Keith Case,” known in the U.S. Reporter as United States v. District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972). The “Keith Case” was announced by the Court on June 19, 1972 — two days after the famous Watergate burglary.

Here’s how Larry tells it in his memoir, “Lost From the Ottawa: The Story of the Journey Back.”

“Though I didn’t know it at the time this Supreme Court decision and the Watergate break-in were connected. Years later it was explained to me.

“It went down like this: The Justices decided the Supreme Court wiretap issue on Friday the 16th of June. According to Court rules the decision was to be kept secret until it was released by the Court [–] in this case, the following Monday. However, someone at the High Court (Rehnquist, or his clerk?) notified the White House and informed them the wiretap issue had been lost.

“This meant that any wiretaps installed by the Executive branch, or its agents, or Nixon’s re-election committee would be illegal on Monday, the 19th, when the ruling was made public. The Watergate burglars were sent in to the Democratic National Headquarters to retrieve the electronic listening devices on Saturday, the 18th of June, before the Monday release of the decision made warrantless wiretaps unconstitutional. The rest, as they say, sucks.”

Plamondon at 276.

I haven’t been able to find (in my ten minutes of research) whether or not anyone other than Larry and a couple conspiracy theorists have made this serious claim. If Rehnquist, who sat out the Keith case deliberations because he was personally involved in the prosecution of Larry Plamondon, or one of his clerks, called the White House to give them a heads up about the outcome AND that communication inspired the Watergate break-in, then … whew!

Cert Petition in Carcieri v. Kempthorne

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From Indianz.com:

Rhode Island appeals land-into-trust ruling
Friday, October 19, 2007

The state of Rhode Island is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a land-into-trust case that is being watched by tribes nationwide.

In July, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Bureau of Indian Affairs can place 31 acres in trust for the Narragansett Tribe. The tribe is like any other tribe and can follow the Indian Reorganization Act, which authorized the land-into-trust process, the court said.

As I will argue in my forthcoming article, “Factbound and Splitless: An Empirical Study of the Impact of the Certiorari Process on Federal Indian Law,” the Supreme Court is unlikely to grant cert. in this case for two important reasons. First, there is no circuit split (“splitless”). What that means is that the federal courts of appeal that have addressed the question of the constitutionality of the fee to trust process (25 U.S.C. § 465) — the 8th Circuit in South Dakota v. Kempthorne, the 10th Circuit in Utah v. Shivwits, and the 11th Circuit in Roberts v. U.S., are examples — have held (just as the 1st Circuit did here) that the statute is constitutional.

Second, this case involves the muddying aspects of the Rhode Island Indian Claims Settlement Act and how it affects the application of § 465, rendering this case a bit messy as a factual matter (“factbound”). If this was a straight-up interpretation of § 465 without the Settlement Act’s application, the Court would be more likely to grant cert (although, without a split, not so much). In short, this case implicates a relatively small number of tribes (those Rhode Island tribes).

Land-into-Trust Decision:
Carcieri v. Kempthorne (July 20, 2007)

Earlier 1st Circuit Decision:
Carcieri v. Norton (February 9, 2005)

Relevant Documents:
Carcieri v. Norton Briefs, Opinions (NARF-NCAI Tribal Supreme Court Project

Relevant Laws:
Rhode Island Indian Claims Settlement Act (US Code)

Relevant Links:
Narragansett Tribe – http://www.narragansett-tribe.org
Tribal Supreme Court Project – http://www.narf.org/sct/index.html

“The Supreme Court’s Indian Problem”

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

I just accepted an offer from the Hastings Law Journal to publish my new paper, “The Supreme Court’s Indian Problem.” Here’s the abstract:

This year, while accepting the “Rule of Law” award from the American Bar Association, Justice Breyer proclaimed that our constitutional system “floats on a sea of public acceptance.” At that time, Breyer’s statements were meant to highlight his expectation that the Court will decide its cases following the “rule of law.”

However, Breyer’s statement, while demonstrative of his faith in the rule of law, does not always ring true. In fact, as I argue, the Supreme Court often decides its cases by ignoring, rather than following, the rule of law. This problem is particularly acute in the body of federal Indian law – which has cast a disastrous shadow on tribal interests. Tribes have lost about three-quarters of their cases before the Supreme Court since 1988. Yet, curiously, prior to 1988, tribal interests won slightly more than half of their cases. What changed?

In this Article, I attempt to answer this question. I will show that the Court identifies important, unrelated constitutional concerns that arise often in Indian law cases – issues with which they and their clerks are familiar – and then decides those matters. Only afterward, and mostly as an afterthought, does the Court then turn to the federal Indian law questions. The Court’s federal Indian law analysis takes a secondary and often inferior role.

The result of this obfuscation is an unrelenting assault on tribal interests before the Court – and the rule of law more generally. In this Article, I offer the first in-depth empirical assessment of the Supreme Court’s recent Indian law decisions and argue in favor of a sweeping change in the means of analyzing Indian law. Instead of focusing on the Indian law questions, this Article shows how major Indian law cases were decided on other grounds to significant tribal disadvantage. Analyzing federal Indian law in this manner makes transparent the Court’s frightening disrespect for the rule of law.

A Judicial Framework for Applying Supreme Court Jurisprudence to the State Income Taxation of Indian Traders by Scott Taylor (St. Thomas)

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Scott Taylor: A Judicial Framework for Applying Supreme Court Jurisprudence to the State Income Taxation of Indian Trader

From the abstract:

State income taxation of Indian traders is a legal issue that the United States Supreme Court is likely to address within the next five years. This article provides a theoretical framework for resolution of the issue by considering the political framework of the United States Constitution and the historical role that federally recognized Indian tribes have played within the American legal system. As the cases work their way through the state judicial systems, this article will provide an important theoretical starting point for the lawyers and judges dealing with the question. And when the United States Supreme Court finally addresses the issue, the Court will be able to consider the usefulness of my framework.

Virtually everyone who sells goods and services to one of the more than 560 federally recognized Indian tribes (or to their on-reservation members) is an Indian trader. Most Indian traders are in states that have an income tax. Although the United States Supreme Court has held that these sales are exempt from states sales taxes, no federal case has yet answered the income tax question. Tribes are interested in the issue because the outcome will affect their ability to tax Indian traders. States are interested because it will affect their tax revenue. Indian traders are interested because it will affect the state income taxes they pay.

The theoretical framework that I propose builds on some of the Supreme Court jurisprudence on federal Indian law. My framework looks at the structure of Congress, the inclusion of states, and the exclusion of tribes. Given Congress’ power over Indian affairs, the Supreme Court should decide cases in favor of the tribal interest whenever Congress has spoken with less than clarity. If states do not like the judicial answer, they can go to Congress and seek a legislative remedy, as they did with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in the 1980s.

Congress has regulated Indian traders for over 200 years but has never stated whether states can tax them. Given the presence of this federal regulation, the United States Supreme Court in the 1960s decided that states could not impose their sales taxes on Indian traders. In a line of subsequent Supreme Court cases, the federal preemption logic has remained largely unchanged. This same logic, when viewed in light of Congress’ role in Indian affairs and the political exclusion of tribes from Congress, leads to the conclusion that Indian traders should be exempt from state income taxes.

Supreme Court & Indian Law

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

The Supreme Court issued its first order of the October 2007 Term last week — containing no Indian law grants, as I blogged elsewhere.

Today, the Court issued an order listing cert. denials, including Catawba Indian Tribe v. South Carolina (No. 07-69), Gros Ventre Tribe v. United States (06-1672), and Yakama v. Colville (No. 06-1588).

So what does this mean? By itself, I suppose it means nothing. But the Catawba and Gros Ventre cases were cases in which the tribal interests were petitioning (and the other case was an intertribal conflict) against a state and the federal government, respectively. A Court hostile to tribal interests would leave those cases alone.

With this round of cert. denials, keep in mind that the last time the S. Ct. granted cert. in an Indian law case was Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation — and two “Westerners,” Rehnquist, C.J. and O’Connor, J., were still Members of the Court. Since then, the Court has denied cert. in something like 60 straight Indian law cases.

For background on my theory about how it matters that “Westerners” used to sit on the Supreme Court in the context of cert. petitions, see my editorial in Indian Country Today.

Of course, the editorial has an incorrect statement (my own fault) — for a few years in the early 1990s, there were four Westerners on the Court — Rehnquist, O’Connor, White, Kennedy.