[from the Indian Trust ListServ <list@list.indiantrust.com>]
Dispute Over Article Accusing Presiding Judge of Conducting a Reign Of TerrorWHO: Keith Harper, Esq., Counsel to the Class in Cobell v. Norton, the largest case ever filed against the United States, involving American Indian money held in trust by the U.S. government for more than 100 years without a proper accounting.
Mr. Harper will be joined in the debate by American University Law Professor Jamin Raskin, who has served as counsel to the plaintiffs.
Debating Mr. Harper and Professor Raskin will be George Washington University Law Professor Richard Pierce, author of a highly controversial 2004 article in American University's Administrative Law Review attacking the U.S. federal district court judge in the Cobell v. Norton litigation. The article was entitled: Judge Lamberth's Reign of Terror at the Department of Interior.
WHEN: September 21, 2004, 7:30 PM
WHAT: Debate over merits of the Cobell litigation and Professor Pierce's public attacks against Judge Lamberth's handling of the case. Professor Pierce's recent appeal to the Judicial Council a review board for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to have Judge Lamberth removed from the case was firmly rejected. Pierce responded by accusing the Judicial Council of impermissible bias in the case.
WHERE: American University School of Law, Washington, D.C., Room: TBA
WHY: The timing of this debate will correspond with the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian and related events planned for the week of September 20th. Coverage of the museum's opening should underscore the issues in this important multi-billion dollar lawsuit and make clear the matter is not historical but an ongoing injustice that is current and newsworthy.About Cobell v. Norton
Cobell v. Norton was originally filed in 1996 by lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell, who had tried for years to get an accurate accounting of funds held in trust by the U.S. government for individual Indian-owned land that had been leased by the federal government for mining, grazing, oil and gas exploration and other uses. In two separate trials, a federal judge found that the U.S. Departments
of the Interior and Treasury engaged in "fiscal and governmental irresponsibility in its purest form" in maintaining and accounting for the trust assets belonging to 500,000 individual Indians.
You know, all it would take to make national native news on this is for one of the candidates, or one of their spouses, to simply sit quietly in the audience. For those of you who need context, if you've seen the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou", this is the moment where Reform Party candidate Homer Stokes (Wayne Duvall) reveals his other role as the Imperial Wizard of the Invisible Knights of the Klu Klux Klan, and demands of the audience "Is you is, or is you ain't, my constituency?"
Posted by EBW at September 20, 2004 08:58 AM | TrackBack