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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 2003

The Supreme Court may have handed defeat to the Navajo Nation but Indian Country won overall with last week's fiduciary trust rulings, The Denver Post says in an editorial today.

The paper says the Navajo Nation lost based on "a narrow question about the wording in an old federal law." But the justices didn't touch agreements the Bush administration advanced that could have hurt the trust relationship, the paper adds.

"Instead, the court specifically reaffirmed the government's trust obligation in one case the Indians won," the paper says.

The Navajo case was decided 6-3 against the tribe. In a separate but related case, the court ruled 5-4 in favor of the White Mountain Apache Tribe of Arizona.

Get the Story:
Editorial: Score one for the Indians (The Denver Post 3/12)

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