A descendant of Chief Tumulth visits the grave of the chief's youngest daughter. Photo from Grand Ronde We All Belong / Facebook
The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde are hiring a new appellate court, just three months after losing a major disenrollment case. All three appellate judge positions are open, according to a judicial vacancy notice being circulated by the Oregon State Bar. Applications are being accepted until December 23. The notice does not say what happened to the three prior judges. Their names were still listed on the tribe's website as of Tuesday afternoon. But it's clear their contracts are not being renewed by the tribal council after they ruled in favor of the descendants of Chief Tumulth in the long-running disenrollment case. The August 5 ruling resulted in the chief's descendants being reinstated last month and it marked a rare victory amid an epidemic of disenrollment cases in Indian Country. In many situations, those being ousted have little recourse, either because their tribes lack independent judiciaries or reliable methods of resolving internal disputes. It didn't seem that way at Grand Ronde, whose appellate court boasted some of Indian Country's most-respected legal names. The chief justice was Robert J. Miller, a member of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe who had been in that position since 2001. But Grand Ronde leaders and citizens made no secret of their intense displeasure with Miller's 22-page opinion in the case. Chairman Reyn Leno had vowed to call all three judges into council chambers to answer questions about the ruling. "No court should force a sovereign nation to break its own constitution and laws," citizen Brenda Gray said at a general council meeting a day before the chief's descendants were finally reinstated. "This court is telling us we do not have a right to determine who our own members are." Despite the disagreement with the outcome in the case, and the removal of the appellate judges, Chief Tumulth's descendants are apparently safe from being removed from the rolls. Besides Miller, the other judges on the appellate court were Patricia C. Paul, who is Alaska Native, and Douglas Nash, who is a member of the Nez Perce Tribe.
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