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Racist emails of former Montana federal judge to be preserved

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Plaintiffs and supporters in Wandering Medicine voting rights case that was heard by a former Montana federal judge who sent racist emails about Native Americans and other people. Photo by Joseph Zummo / Reporting from Indian Country

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has been ordered to preserve the racist emails of a former federal judge in Montana.

Acting on a request from Indian People’s Action, Four Directions and two members of the Crow Tribe, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said the messages sent by Richard Cebull must be kept until January 2019. The decision doesn't make the emails public immediately but one of the plaintiffs welcomed it as a step in that direction.

“If we are going to call it a ‘justice system,’ it needs to be about justice, not race, money or anything else," Lita Pepion, a member of the Blackfeet Nation who sits on the board of Indian People’s Action, told Indian Country Today.

Cebull stepped down in May 2013 after he admitted sending a racist message about President Barack Obama from his official government account. A subsequent investigation found that he sent "hundreds" of inappropriate messages, including some about Native Americans, through the same account.

The Judicial Council of the 9th Circuit, however, said it didn't find any bias in any of Cebull's rulings. A report released in 2014 said he went out of his way to accommodate Indian defendants and their families.

But the Indian advocates want to see the messages for themselves to decide. They noted that Cebull presided over over Wandering Medicine v. McCulloch before he stepped down in which he refused to order the state of Montana to open polling offices on reservations.

Additionally, Clifford Birdinground, a former chairman of the Crow Tribe, wants to know whether his attempt to withdraw a guilty plea in a bribery case was tainted by Cebull's views. He is one of the plaintiffs in the email case.

Cebull, who once served as a judge for the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, was nominated for a seat on the U.S. District Court in Montana by former president George W. Bush in 2001 and confirmed that same year. He became chief judge of the court in 2008.

A family from the Crow Tribe adopted Obama during his presidential campaign in 2008. The Crow Legislature passed a resolution that called on Congress to impeach Cebull before he stepped down.

Get the Story:
Justice Speaks! Judge’s Racist Emails Must Be Preserved (Indian Country Today 3/25)
Court officials ordered to preserve racist emails from former chief US judge in Montana (AP 3/22)
9th Circuit Must Preserve Judge's Emails (Courthouse News Service 3/20)