Tribal Court Jurisdiction Debated:

Supreme Court takes up tribal jurisdiction case
4/15/2008, Indianz.com
The following commentary was written by Gavin Clarkson (Choctaw), an assistant professor at the University of Michigan. He attended yesterday's oral arguments on behalf of Indianz.Com. As I walked into the U.S. Supreme Court chambers for the oral argument of Plains Commerce Bank v. Long Family Land & Cattle Company, I was filled with a sense of foreboding. The last time I attended oral argument was in 2001 for Nevada v. Hicks. After that awful experience, I was not hopeful that this time would be different. Given the clear facts in this case and a string of victories for tribal court jurisdiction in four lower court proceedings, many in the Indian law community feared that the only reason the justices took the case was to wreak havoc upon tribal court jurisdiction.

What Would a Scalia-Alito Corporation Sell?
4/15/2008, Legal Times
The first Supreme Court oral argument Monday morning was all about Native American law and the jurisdiction of tribal courts. But Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. took the debate in an unexpected direction -- across the Atlantic to southern Europe. The issue in Plains Commerce Bank v. Long Family Land & Cattle was whether tribal courts have jurisdiction over a dispute between a nontribal bank and a company that is majority Indian-owned. More than 51 percent of the owners of the South Dakota ranching company in the case are members of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and, as such, the company was entitled to loan guarantees from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

BINGO Expansion Delayed