Here are the materials in Northern Arapaho Tribe v. Harnsburger:
Northern Arapaho Tribe DCT Order
Eastern Shoshone Motion to Dismiss
Northern Arapaho Opposition to USA Motion
Here’s the news article from Indianz:
Wind River Reservation
Yellowbear Redux — Federal Court Finds Wind River Reservation Diminishment
Here is the District of Wyoming’s 40-page decision in Yellowbear v. Wyoming Attorney General — Yellowbear DCT Order
The Wyoming Supreme Court’s opinion to which the federal court gives deference is here.
The briefs:
Tenth Circuit Vacates Sentence of Tribal Member and Remands
The case is U.S. v. Pappan, involving a Wind River Reservation resident and member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe. He was already sentenced at the low end of the range, but appealed anyway. Now it’s all up for grabs.
NYTs on the Wind River Casino
From the NYTs:
Last week I was in Wyoming, driving westward on the southern edge of a big winter storm. For dozens of miles, sheets of snow arced across the still-dry pavement. After a long while, I made out the welcome lights of Shoshoni. When you find yourself longing for the lights of Shoshoni — the glow of a gas station — you know the driving has been hard.
I joined a convoy of vehicles coming out of Riverton and up the hill past the Wind River Casino, which was shrouded in a nimbus of snow. We slithered along at school-zone speeds, barely 20 miles an hour. Across the highway, the drivers of two pickups climbed into the ditch to check on a car whose headlights were now pointing up at the overcast, snow corkscrewing down into the angled beams. At last, I came down the hill into Lander, where two feet of heavy autumn snow would fall in the next 36 hours.
NYTs: Article on Arapaho Language Preservation
From the NYTs:
RIVERTON, Wyo. — At 69, her eyes soft and creased with age, Alvena Oldman remembers how the teachers at St. Stephens boarding school on the Wind River Reservation would strike students with rulers if they dared to talk in their native Arapaho language.
“We were afraid to speak it,” she said. “We knew we would be punished.”
More than a half-century later, only about 200 Arapaho speakers are still alive, and tribal leaders at Wind River, Wyoming’s only Indian reservation, fear their language will not survive. As part of an intensifying effort to save that language, this tribe of 8,791, known as the Northern Arapaho, recently opened a new school where students will be taught in Arapaho. Elders and educators say they hope it will create a new generation of native speakers.
Wind River Reservation Diminshment — Yellowbear v. Wyoming (Wyo. S. Ct.)
The Wyoming Supreme Court decided Yellowbear v. Wyoming, finding that the Wind River Reservation had been diminished in upholding the conviction of Yellowbear (h/t Indianz).
Once again, a state court has been placed in the position of adjudicating Indian reservation boundaries in the context of of a criminal case.
Eagle Repository Case: United States v. Friday (CA10) — Update!
Oral argument in this very interesting case is set for December 17, 2007 in Denver. The panel consists of Ebel, Kelly, and McConnell.
Our previous post with initial briefs and the lower court opinion is here. Friday retained counsel and that attorney was given leave by the Court to file a supplemental brief (see below the fold).
Turtle Talk 