FROM THE ARCHIVE
Lamberth takes on tribal trust onslaught
Facebook
Twitter
Email
THURSDAY, JULY 25, 2002 The federal judge overseeing the Indian trust debacle dealt the Bush administration a major blow this week with his decision to take on several tribal mismanagement disputes. In a series of court orders, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth agreed to hear from tribes that are demanding an historical accounting of their assets. Rejecting Secretary of Interior Gale Norton's pleas to let someone else handle the cases, he cited numerous parallels with the ongoing Cobell lawsuit he oversees, a class action representing than 500,000 individual Indians. "The court finds that the defendants' objection is without merit because these cases are replete with common issues of fact," Lamberth wrote in one of the July 23 orders. The decision affects the Fort Peck Tribes of Montana, the Crow Tribe of Montana, the Chippewa-Cree Tribe of Montana, the Shoshone-Bannock Nation of Idaho and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. The tribes had asked to be assigned to Lamberth, whose December 1999 ruling in the Cobell case set the stage for the latest round of lawsuits. "Lamberth knows the case, Lamberth knows the defendants and Lamberth knows the defendants on the issue of trust duties have performed extraordinarily poorly," said Keith Harper, an attorney who handles Cobell for the Native American Rights Fund, one of the groups behind the tribal onslaught. Like Cobell, the defendants in the tribal cases are the Departments of Interior and Treasury. Lamberth, in his orders, noted that both individual and tribal trust moneys were deposited in the same Treasury account. Also like Cobell, the Interior manages oil, gas, mining, timber and other activities on trust lands. "The court will have to determine . . . whether the defendants are administering these leases in accordance with their fiduciary obligations," Lamberth wrote in one order. And Lamberth said the Interior's woeful computer systems affect tribes just as individual Indians. "Indeed, there is no question," he noted, "that information technology security is a significant issue of fact in cases involving tribal and individual Indian beneficiaries." Accepting the cases is a setback to the Bush administration. Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles, in a March 27 court affidavit filed in the tribal cases, said the Interior was having trouble keeping up with just the Cobell litigation. "[T]he department has not had sufficient personnel available to do the necessary staff work for and assist in the preparation of the government's response to the complaints in the tribal trust cases," he said. Trust mismanagement issues threaten to explode throughout the federal court system. A total of 18 lawsuits, including the ones in Lamberth's court in the District of Columbia, seek an accounting of tribal assets. Additionally, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota filed a claim but didn't follow proper procedures, according to another order Lamberth filed on Tuesday. He gave the tribe ten days to correct its mistake. Interior spokespersons had no immediate comment on the latest court action. Attorneys from the Washington, D.C., law firm of Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Endreson & Perry, which is handling some of the tribal cases, did not return calls seeking comment. Relevant Documents:
Assiniboine and Sioux Tribe of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation v. Norton (7/23) | Griles Declaration (3/27) Related Stories:
Griles slammed for ignorance (7/12)
Griles can't explain trust standards (6/27)
Navajo royalty case accepted (6/4)
Don Hodel's Navajo Folly (6/4)
Supreme Court accepts Navajo trust case (6/3)
Navajo royalty case up for review (5/30)
Supreme Court considers 'deception' of trust (5/22)
Action due on Navajo trust case (5/20)
Court to decide limits of trust duty (4/23)
Bush wants Navajo ruling reversed (3/27)
Trust accounting looms for tribes (3/20)
Bush administration bets on accounting (3/18)
GAO: Full reconciliation impossible (2/8)
Advertisement
Stay Connected
Contact
Search
Trending in News
1 White House Council on Native American Affairs meets quick demise under Donald Trump
2 'A process of reconnecting': Young Lakota actor finds ways to stay tied to tribal culture
3 Jenni Monet: Bureau of Indian Affairs officer on leave after fatal shooting of Brandon Laducer
4 'A disgraceful insult': Joe Biden campaign calls out Navajo leader for Republican speech
5 Kaiser Health News: Sisters from Navajo Nation died after helping coronavirus patients
2 'A process of reconnecting': Young Lakota actor finds ways to stay tied to tribal culture
3 Jenni Monet: Bureau of Indian Affairs officer on leave after fatal shooting of Brandon Laducer
4 'A disgraceful insult': Joe Biden campaign calls out Navajo leader for Republican speech
5 Kaiser Health News: Sisters from Navajo Nation died after helping coronavirus patients
News Archive
About This Page
You are enjoying stories from the Indianz.Com Archive, a collection dating back to 2000. Some outgoing links may no longer work due to age.
All stories are available for publishing via Creative Commons License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)