Tenth Circuit – Page 30

1. Does a state have the power to tax minerals production within the territorial boundaries of an Indian nation when the state provides no services in that location whatsoever, and where the tribe’s members cannot even vote in that state’s elections, amounting to taxation without representation?

2. Does Cotton Petroleum Corp. v. New Mexico, 490 U.S. 163 (1989), permit New Mexico to tax oil and gas operators’ activities on Indian trust land even where, as here, “the State has nothing to do with the on-reservation activity,
save tax it”?

Tenth Circuit materials are here.

Tenth Circuit Affirms Sentences of Navajo Members in Manslaughter Case

December 13, 2011December 12, 2011Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion in United States v. Talk.

Tenth Circuit Considers Prior Tribal Court Convictions in Sentence Enhancement Case

December 1, 2011December 1, 2011Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the unpublished opinion in United States v. Romero.

The underlying conviction was for assaulting a Bureau of Indian Affairs corrections officer.

An excerpt:

Mr. Romero argues that the district court should not have considered his 2003 tribal court conviction because he pled guilty without the assistance of counsel. He fails, however, to develop this argument. He cites no case holding that a district court is precluded from considering a defendant’s prior, uncounseled tribal court convictions in its departure analysis, and in fact, our precedents do not support his contention. Cf. United States v. Concha, 294 F.3d 1248, 1253-54, 1255 (10th Cir. 2002) (upholding district court’s consideration of criminal conduct underlying uncounseled foreign convictions in departure analysis); United States v. Wyne, 41 F.3d 1405, 1409 n.5 (10th Cir. 1994) (disapproving of another circuit’s reversal of upward departure on basis that misdemeanor convictions were uncounseled).

Tenth Circuit Declines to Issue Certificate of Appealability to Andrew John Yellowbear

November 6, 2011November 4, 2011Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the unpublished order.

Here are prior orders from federal and state courts in this matter.

Classic example of how Indian country is prejudiced in criminal cases Indian tribes cannot control; here, courts found the Wind River Reservation diminished.