The case is In Re DeCora. It involves a Ho-Chunk member declaring bankruptcy and whether the Ho-Chunk Nation Bank’s interest in the member’s per cap proceeds were secured. The opinion is a little entertaining, beginning with a reference to Frank Zappa:
Musician and satirist Frank Zappa once quipped that “Communism doesn’t work because people like to [...]
From the Billings Gazette:
Despite court rulings that slice away at tribal sovereignty, Indian law specialist Tom Fredericks of Boulder, Colo., believes “tribal governments are stronger than ever.”
They have to be. Retreating federal budgets place ever more burden on Indian governments to provide basic services.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs for years has been turning more federal [...]
From the Salt Lake Tribune:
Federal appeals court judges have said a Navajo tribal court can’t force the San Juan County-owned Montezuma Creek Clinic to rehire employees who alleged they were wrongfully terminated.
But three former employees won’t take no for an answer.
In March, they asked the Navajo Supreme Court to instruct tribal courts to ignore that [...]
Here is the article from the ABA Judicial Division Record — inside-the-maze.
This story highlights the problem of violence against women in Indian Country, with the Amnesty Report (available here) as a jumping off point.
From the Billings Gazette (Part I is here):
Three days a week, a dozen or so defendants in criminal cases appear before a Crow Tribal Court judge.
They could be charged with anything from a traffic violation to murder, and they could be there for a five-minute guilty plea or a weeklong trial. It’s all in the [...]
From the Billings Gazette:
When the last of the bison herds disappeared in the early 1880s, Indian nations on the Northern Plains were reduced to poverty.
In Montana, where there are no high-flying gambling operations and big population centers, economic conditions for American Indians have been slow to change. Unemployment is rampant, and business opportunities are scarce.
Through [...]
Here is a simple tribal court exhaustion case arising out of a property dispute at Crow.
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R. Stephen McNeil, a law student at Washington & Lee, has posted “In a Class by Themselves: a Proposal to Incorporate Tribal Courts into the Federal Court System Without Compromising Their Unique Status as “Domestic Dependent Nations” on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This Note proposes a solution to the longstanding problem of how to fit [...]
Sr. District Judge Bogue dismissed this claim, brought under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1985. Here are the materials:
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birdnecklace-motion-for-default-judgment
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From the Legal Times (H/T Indianz):
The first Supreme Court oral argument Monday morning was all about Native American law and the jurisdiction of tribal courts. But Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. took the debate in an unexpected direction — across the Atlantic to southern Europe.
The issue in Plains Commerce Bank v. Long Family Land [...]
