Micmac-Maliseet sovereignty case headed to Supreme Court

**Tumbleweed** · Admin Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 4

This is a case that affects our local tribes.

Quote:

BOSTON - A 1st Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruling in April that effectively terminated the tribal sovereignty of the Aroostook Band of Micmacs and the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in the fall.

The appeals court denied a request for a full six-member en banc appeal of the panel decision.

If left standing, the ruling could set a precedent for all of Indian country, eroding a nation's sovereign right to self-government and how it conducts day-to-day business on its lands, attorney Douglas Luckerman said.

''We're going to the Supreme Court now. We're filing briefs later this summer of early fall. We think there are some interesting arguments that the members - even the more conservative members - will be interested in,'' Luckerman, who represents both tribal nations, said.

The two cases were ruled on simultaneously April 17 in a 2 - 1 decision. The case emerged from an employment discrimination complaint against the Micmacs that resulted in the tribe suing the state. The majority decision ruled that the federal Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980 and the Micmacs Settlement Act of 1991 subjected the band to total state jurisdiction, including how tribes handle employment. The two judges then applied their decision to the Maliseets.

The Hon. Kermit Lipez wrote a dissenting opinion.

The decision cited as a precedent to its own controversial ruling that the state of Rhode Island has total civil and criminal jurisdiction over the Narragansett Indian Tribe. A majority decision in that case claimed the Narraganssetts waived their sovereign immunity in a 1978 land claim settlement even though nothing in the act says so. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a petition for appeal of that decision.