Wampum

Approximately the size of Maine (19,75 million acres). That's the size of the land "appropriated" and put into trust for four Indian tribes, a trust a federal judge has now ruled is in fact a trust, and will allow the tribes to sue to its mismanagement by the Interior Department.

Judge advances Chippewa trust mismanagement case
Thursday, February 23, 2006

Four Chippewa tribes who were awarded $52 million for the loss of their lands can challenge the United States for allegedly mismanaging those funds, a federal judge ruled last month.

In a 55-page opinion that the Native American Rights Fund is calling a "stunning victory," Judge Emily C. Hewitt of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims said Congress created a fiduciary responsibility when it appropriated money to pay the tribes for the loss of 20 million acres. She rejected the Bush administration's attempt to deny the existence of a trust relationship and avoid an historical accounting of the funds.

In two separate proceedings, the Indian Claims Commission had awarded the tribes $52 million, money which was sent to the Treasury Department for the intended beneficiaries. So there can be no dispute that such funds are "trust" funds even if the word "trust" is not mentioned in the acts of Congress that authorized the award, Hewitt concluded.

"Both the intent of Congress," Hewitt wrote and long executive branch practice support the conclusion that 'funds appropriated to Indians to satisfy judgments of the Indian Claims Commission or of this court' ... are, when kept in the Treasury, held in trust for the Indians."

I'm swamped, but saw this as the headliner on Indianz.com and couldn't resist. This case is not dissimilar to the larger Indian Trust Fund class action suit (Cobell v. Norton) and the fact that Indians keep achieving such stunning victories in federal courts (even the US Supreme Court) must have the Bushies and their corporate overlords quaking in their boots.

Update: I spoke too soon when I included the Supreme Court in the "pro-Trust" camp. That was the pre-Roberts court, otherwise known as the Rehnquist Court, headed up by one of the most greatest Indian-haters of the 20th Century. Now, for the 21st Century, we have Chief Justice John Roberts to take up that mantle:

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to block a small religious group from using a hallucinogenic tea in a unanimous decision on Tuesday that included some potentially hostile language about the trust relationship.

By an 8-0 vote, with new Justice Samuel Alito not participating, the court said the Bush administration failed to demonstrate why the sect cannot use the leaves of the hoasca plant in ceremonies. The tea leaves contain an illegal drug known as DMT, a substance that is listed under the same federal law as peyote.

As part of the case, the Department of Justice argued that the federal Indian trust relationship provided a basis to allow members of the Native American Church to use peyote, a hallucinogenic plant, in ceremonies without violating the law. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts, another new arrival on the court, wrote that the political status of tribes can't be used to justify why non-Indians should be excluded from the same religious protections.

"If such use is permitted ... for hundreds of thousands of Native Americans exercising their faith, it is difficult to see how those same findings alone can preclude any consideration of a similar exception for the 130 or so American members of the UDV who want to practice theirs," Roberts wrote in reference to the members of the O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, or UDV.

Roberts said the government "never explains what about that 'unique' relationship" gives the U.S. the right to carve out an exception for Native American Church practitioners. Both peyote and hoasca, listed under Schedule I of the Controlled Substance Act, pose the same health and safety risks, the court reasoned.