The Law of American Indians Posts

If you don’t know treaties and sovereignty, you don’t know history

There’s a widespread notion that “tribal sovereignty” and “Indian treaties” are legal, historical, practical and correct terms. Actually, sovereignty is sovereignty, and treaties are treaties, nation to nation is between and among sovereigns; the use of “tribal” or “Indian” or any modifier is both misleading and belittling.

Federal Circuit Holds Tribal Immunity Does Not Apply To Inter Partes Review

Last Friday, in an anticipated decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided a controversial case regarding the St. Regis Mohawk’s ability assert sovereign immunity in inter partes review proceedings. The Federal Circuit held that tribal sovereign immunity cannot be asserted in inter partes review proceedings.

American Indian Law and Policy: 10 Things You Need to Know

All three branches of the federal government had a busy spring. The U.S. Supreme Court just completed its 2017 term in June with a full-strength bench after spending much of the previous term with only eight justices after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016. The vacancy during the 2016 term was prolonged when the Senate refused to consider President Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Scalia before the 2016 elections.

Predicting Supreme Court Behavior in Indian Law Cases

Since 1959 the Supreme Court has heard an average of 2.6 Indian law cases each term out of a recent average of approximately 80 cases. This paper attempts to identify which factors may be influencing the outcome of Indian law opinions by creating a new dataset of 156 Indian law cases and testing twelve potentially explanatory variables using logistic regression analysis.

Tribal Powers over Nonmembers – Part 2

This is the second post that presents the Sections from the 2018 American Indian Law Annual Meeting draft that deals with tribal powers over nonmembers. The previous post presented the Black Letter and Comments from § 34, Civil Regulatory and Adjudicatory Authority over Nonmembers.