A view of the U.S. Supreme Court. File Photo © Indianz.Com
The U.S. Supreme Court today declined a petition in Stockbridge-Munsee Community v. New York, a land claim case. The Stockbridge-Munsee Community, now based in Wisconsin, sued the state of New York to recover its ancestral territory. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the claim, saying it was too "disruptive" to non-Indians. "[I]t is now well‐established that Indian land claims asserted generations after an alleged dispossession are inherently disruptive of state and local governance and the settled expectations of current landowners, and are subject to dismissal on the basis of laches, acquiescence, and impossibility," the court said in a June 20, 2014, decision. After the 2nd Circuit declined to rehear the case, the tribe asked the Supreme Court to review it. The justices, without comment, denied the petition in an order this morning. The development marks the latest loss for tribal land claims in the northeast. In addition to the Stockbridge-Munsee Band, the Oneida Nation, the Cayuga Nation and the Onondaga Nation have all seen their caes dismissed by the 2nd Circuit. The movement started after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York in 2005. Although the case had nothing to do with land claims -- it arose out of a dispute over the Oneida Nation's attempts to assert sovereignty within its ancestral territory -- -- the 2nd Circuit has used it to keep tribes from trying to recover land that was stolen by the state of New York. Turtle Talk has posted documents from the Stockbridge-Munsee case, Stockbridge-Munsee Community v. New York. 2nd Circuit Decision:
Stockbridge‐Munsee Community v. New York (June 20, 2014)
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