Justia Native American Law Opinion Summaries

Two non-Indian entities brought this action to enjoin Navajo Nation tribal officials from applying tribal law to them in tribal courts. They claimed that both their contract with the tribe and federal law deprived tribal officials of authority to regulate them. At issue was whether the Navajo Nation itself was a necessary party under Rule 19. The court held that the tribe was not a necessary party because the tribal officials could be expected to adequately represent the tribe's interests in this action and because complete relief could be accorded among the existing parties without the tribe. Thus, this lawsuit for prospective injunctive relief could proceed against the officials under a routine application of Ex parte Young and should not be dismissed. View "Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power Dist., et al. v. Lee, et al." on Justia Law

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation (MCN) sued the Oklahoma Tax Commission (OTC), three commissioners and the Oklahoma Attorney General (collectively, State), seeking declaratory and injunctive relief based on numerous claims challenging three Oklahoma statutes that tax and regulate the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products as a violative of federal law and tribal sovereignty. The OTC and the Attorney General brought motions to dismiss. The district court dismissed MCN's claims against all Defendant's based on the State's Eleventh Amendment immunity, or alternatively, for failing to state a claim under Fed. R.Civ. P. 12(b)(6). On appeal, the Tenth Circuit found that the Eleventh Amendment did not preclude MCN's suit, but that in its complaint, the Nation failed to state a claim. View "Muscogee (Creek) v. Henry, et al" on Justia Law

A juvenile male appealed the district court's determination that he was an "Indian" under 18 U.S.C. 1153, which provided federal criminal jurisdiction for certain crimes committed by Indians in Indian country. The juvenile claimed that he did not identify as an Indian, and was not socially recognized as Indian by other tribal members. Nonetheless, he was an enrolled tribal member, had received tribal assistance, and had used his membership to obtain tribal benefits. Therefore, because the juvenile was Indian by blood and easily met three of the most important factors used to evaluate tribal recognition laid out in United States v. Bruce, the court held that he was an "Indian" under section 1153 and upheld his conviction. View "United States v. Juvenile Male" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Kerry Raina Bryant appealed her conviction for theft by an officer or employee of a gaming establishment on Choctaw Indian lands. She entered a conditional plea, reserving the right to appeal the denial of her motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. She was sentenced to a two-year probation, and ordered to pay restitution. On appeal, Defendant argued that the statute under which she was charged (18 U.S.C. 1168) did not apply to her because she was not a casino employee, and that 18 U.S.C. 2 did not apply because it punishes illegal acts against the "United States," and the Choctaw tribe is "not the United States." Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found that Defendant committed her crime with her sister, who was a casino employee, and the applicable statute declares Defendant a "principal" for aiding and abetting theft by a casino employee. Furthermore, the Court found Defendant's crime was against a "a gaming establishment licensed by the National Indian Gaming Association that sits on territory subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Plainly, there was a crime against the United States." The Court affirmed Defendant's conviction. View "United States v. Bryant" on Justia Law

Defendants-Appellants Patrick Talk and Kenneth Martinez, both enrolled members of the Navajo Tribe, challenged the procedural reasonableness of their sixty-month sentences of imprisonment. The district court imposed the sentences after Defendants pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter in Indian Country in the death of Shawn Begay, also an enrolled member of the Navajo Tribe. Mr. Talk argued that the district court procedurally erred in finding that he did not fully accept responsibility for Mr. Begay's death, and by failing to adequately explain his sentence, because it explained neither why he received the same sentence as Mr. Martinez nor why his sentence was longer than the Sentencing Guidelines' range for aggravated assault. Mr. Martinez argued that the district court procedurally erred by enhancing his sentence pursuant to U.S.S.G. 3A1.1 because Mr. Begay was not a "vulnerable victim" and, even if he was, Mr. Martinez neither knew nor should have known that he was. Finding that Mr. Talk's challenge was "misguided" and that the district court "did not commit procedural error in explaining its upward variance," the Tenth Circuit affirmed his sentence. Because Mr. Begay was heavily intoxicated at the time of his death, the Tenth Circuit found that he was unable to protect himself, and was therefore "unusually vulnerable." The Court found that the district court did not err in finding Mr. Begay was a vulnerable victim, and that Mr. Martinez's challenge to the district court's ruling that he knew or should have known of Mr. Begay's vulnerability "[could not] succeed under plain-error review, regardless of whether his argument [was] framed as a factual or legal one." The Court affirmed Mr. Martinez's sentence. View "United States v. Talk" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of second degree murder and the district court sentenced him to 576 months' imprisonment. On appeal, defendant challenged the substantive reasonableness of his sentence. The court held that the government failed to prove that defendant's appeal was barred by the waiver in his plea agreement. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion and imposed an unreasonable sentence by selecting a high but within-Guidelines sentence for a homicide offense. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed. View "United States v. Boneshirt" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of robbery and aiding and abetting robbery in Indian country in violation of U.S.C. 1153(a) and 2111. On appeal, defendant contended that the government did not present sufficient evidence to establish that he was an "Indian" for purposes of prosecution under section 1153. The court disagreed and held that, in light of all the evidence presented at trial, a reasonable trier of fact could have found that defendant was an Indian. Therefore, the court affirmed defendant's conviction. View "United States v. Labuff" on Justia Law

The Tribes of the Yakima Nation claimed that the principle of Indian tax immunity had been violated by the State of Washington's current cigarette excise tax, which the Tribes argued left their retailers liable for payment of the tax when retailers sold cigarettes to non-Indians. The court held that, although some elements of Washington's cigarette tax law had been modified over the past thirty years, the court concluded that none of those changes had materially altered the legal incidence of the cigarette tax approved of in Confederated Tribes of Colville Indian Reservation v. Washington. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the state. View "Confederated Tribes and Bands, et al. v. Gregoire, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner Christopher Yancey filed an action in district court contending that Oklahoma state-court rulings terminating his parental rights over his Indian child were invalid under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The district court dismissed his action, determining that either federal abstention was mandated, or the action was barred by the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution. Tiffany Leatherman and Petitioner are the natural parents of Baby Boy L. Petitioner was a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Indian Nation of Oklahoma, but Leatherman was not a member of any Native American tribe. Petitioner and Leatherman were teenagers when the child was conceived, and they never married. Before the child was born, Leatherman decided to place him for adoption, and she located Timothy and Tammy Thomas who were interested in adopting him. In December 2002, Leatherman brought an action in Oklahoma state court to terminate Petitioner's parental rights and to determine the child’s eligibility for adoption without Petitioner's consent. Leatherman appeared in court, relinquished her parental rights, and consented to the adoption. Petitioner appeared in the proceedings and objected to the adoption. On May 18, 2010, the Oklahoma trial court entered an order terminating Petitioner's parental rights. The court found that the ICWA had been complied with and that the Thomases had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Petitioner's custody of Baby Boy L. would likely result in serious emotional or physical damage to the child. There was no indication in the record that Petitioner appealed that order. On the day after the Oklahoma trial court entered its order, Petitioner filed this action against the Thomases. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found that the district court did not err in dismissing Yancey’s federal-court action because it was barred by res judicata. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court's decision terminating Appellant's parental rights. View "Yancey v. Thomas" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of second degree murder for the stabbing of a fourteen-year-old and assault with a dangerous weapon for the stabbing of a seventeen-year old in Indian country. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court erred in imposing mandatory minimum sentences under 18 U.S.C. 3559(f) because age was an element of the offense that must be found by the jury, and in denying her motions to suppress evidence and to sever counts of the indictment trial. The court held that the district court did not commit plain error in imposing the minimum thirty-year sentence for second degree murder of a child under the age of eighteen mandated by section 3559(f)(1) because the age provisions in section 3559(f) were sentencing factors. The court also held that, given the violent events of the night in question, the officer had probable cause to enter the parked, but highly mobile, vehicle without a warrant and to seize the weapons he observed inside. The court further held that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied her motion to sever the murder and assault charges. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Brown" on Justia Law