Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-94-05073/USCOURTS-caDC-94-05073-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 27, 1995 Decided June 20, 1995

No. 94-5073

SHOSHONE-BANNOCK TRIBES,

APPELLANTS

v.

JANET RENO, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(93cv00581)

Jeanette Wolfley argued the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs was Reid P. Chambers.

Jacques B. Gelin, Attorney, United States Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellee.

With him on the brief were Lois J. Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General, Edward J. Shawaker and

Edward J. Passarelli, Attorneys, United States Department ofJustice. Albert M. Ferlo, Jr. entered

an appearance.

Before: WALD, RANDOLPH, and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS, in which Circuit Judge WALD joins.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: The district court dismissed an action brought by the ShoshoneBannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation for lack of jurisdiction. The Tribes sought to

compel the Attorney General to file claims on their behalf in the Snake River basin water rights

adjudication in Idaho state court. We conclude that the Attorney General's refusal to represent the

Tribes in the Idaho proceeding is committed to her discretion. Judicial review of the Tribes' claim

is consequently unavailable.

I

On November 19, 1987, an Idaho state court sitting in Twin Falls, Idaho, issued an order

commencing a general stream adjudication of water rights for the Snake River basin. The United

States was joined pursuant to the McCarran Amendment, 43 U.S.C. § 666, which waives sovereign

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1Three other tribes potentially possess water rights in the Snake River basinthe Nez Perce

Tribe, the Northwestern Band of the Shoshoni Nation, and the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the

Duck Valley Indian Reservation. The United States has filed federal reserved rights claims in the

Snake River basin proceeding on behalf of the Nez Perce Tribe. The Nez Perce Tribe and the

Northwestern Band of the Shoshoni Nation have also filed their own claims. 

immunity in state or federal actions for "the adjudication of rights to the use of water of a river

system," including water rights held by the United States on behalf of Indian tribes. See Colorado

River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 810-13 (1976). In 1990, the

Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort HallIndian Reservation, the United States, the State ofIdaho,

and other Idaho water users executed the Fort Hall Indian Water Rights Agreement, quantifying the

claimed federal "reserved water rights" (of which more hereafter) not only within the boundaries of

the Fort HallReservation, but also appurtenant to certain reserved lands outside theReservation, held

in trust for or owned by the Tribes and its members.1 The Tribes took the lead in negotiating this

agreement, although the federal government funded the studies connected with establishing these

reserved water rights. Congress ratified the agreement in the Fort Hall Indian Water Rights Act of

1990, Pub. L. No. 101-602, 104 Stat. 3059. Currently, the United States is defending the claims

embodied in the agreement against third-party objections and is seeking their approval in the Idaho

state court.

The Fort Hall Indian Water Rights Agreement did not settle the Tribes' claim, central to the

case before us, to other water rights in the Snake River basin beyond the Fort Hall Reservation's

boundaries. The claim stems, according to the Tribes, from the Treaty of Fort Bridger of July 3,

1868, 15 Stat. 673, 674-75. Article IV of the Treaty gave the Tribes the right, outside the

Reservation, "to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States so long as game may be found

thereon, and so long as peace subsists among the whites and Indians on the borders of the hunting

districts." In 1988, without taking a position on the merits of the Tribes' claim, the Bureau of Indian

Affairs hired experts to conduct instream flow studies in the lower Snake, the Salmon, and the

Clearwater River basins. The studies began in 1989, with the goal of quantifying the instream flows

necessary to preserve fish and other natural resources potentially protected by treaties with various

Idaho Indian tribes, including the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. Quarterly meetings to review progress

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on the studies were held. Participants included a technical advisory committee comprising Bureau

staff and members ofthe Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, the NezPerceTribe, and the NorthwesternBand

of the Shoshoni Nation; the experts hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs; and legal representatives

of the Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice and each of the Indian tribes.

In early 1992, the Interior Department asked the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes to submit legal

arguments, with relevant documentation, to support their claimsto off-reservation water rightsin the

Snake River basin. The Tribes supplied information showing that Idaho courts had interpreted the

Tribes' treaty-granted hunting rightsto include fishing rights. They also offered to arrange a meeting

with their anthropologist, an offer the Department of the Interior declined. On May 19, 1992, the

Idaho district court ordered that all remaining federal claims, including claims made by or on behalf

of Indians, be filed by March 25, 1993. Prompted by the order, the Interior Department intensified

its efforts to assess the merits of the Tribes' claims to off-reservation water rights in the Snake River

basin.

On November 16, 1992, the Interior Department's Regional Solicitor and other

representatives of the United States met with the Fort Hall Business Council, the Tribes' governing

body. The Regional Solicitor told the tribal council and its attorneys that, based on a preliminary

analysis, he would recommend against the Justice Department's filing a claim for off-reservation

instream flows on behalf of the Tribes. Nevertheless, he again invited the Tribes to support their

claims with historical information and legal arguments. The Regional Solicitor also told the Tribes

that the United States had hired a historical expert to investigate the basis of the Tribes' claim to

water rights in the Snake River basin. Two more meetings and an exchange of information between

the United States' and the Tribes' historical experts followed. On March 4, 1993, the Regional

Solicitor recommended to the Interior Department's Acting Solicitor that the United States not file

instream flow claims on behalf of the Tribes. The Acting Solicitor orally informed the Tribes, on

March 22, 1993, that he had recommended against the Department of Justice's filing claims to

off-reservation water rights on behalf of the Tribes. The next day he sent a letter to the Chairman of

the Tribes' Business Council confirming his decision and explaining the legal rationale underlying it.

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The Tribes then brought this suit against the Attorney General, seeking: (1) a declaratory

judgment that the United States had violated its responsibility to the Tribes by refusing to file claims

to off-reservation water rights in the Snake River basin proceeding; (2) an order compelling the

Attorney General to file the claims on the Tribes' behalf; (3) an order directing the government to

release all technical data in its possession relating to the Tribes' claims; and (4) an award of damages,

costs and attorneysfees. On March 24, 1993, the district court granted a temporary restraining order

requiring the United Statesto file the claimsin the Idaho state court, and the United States complied.

The district court later denied the Tribes' motion for a preliminary injunction, finding that the

Tribes had not shown they were likely to succeed on the merits of their claim or that they would

suffer irreparable harmifthe court did not grant their motion. The district court ultimately dismissed

the Tribes' suit for lack ofsubject matter jurisdiction, a judgment from which the Tribes now appeal.

The court concluded that the federal government's general trust responsibility toward the Tribes did

not require the Attorney General to file suit and that the Tribes had not identified a "specific treaty,

statute, or agreement" obligating the Attorney General to bring the water rights claims. Nor had the

Tribes established anattorney-clientrelationship between themselves and theUnited Statesthat might

require the Attorney General to file their claims.

II

The United States creates reservations by withdrawing land from the public domain and

reserving the land for a particular purpose, such as an Indian reservation or a national forest or a

national park or monument. With respect to such reservations, courts have long applied the

federal-reserved-water-rights doctrine, giving the United States the appurtenant unappropriated

waters necessary to accomplish the purposes for which the government created the federal

reservation. Cappaert v. United States, 426 U.S. 128, 138 (1976); Arizona v. California, 373 U.S.

546, 601 (1963); Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564, 575-78 (1908). The doctrine rests on the

idea that the reservation of public lands for a public purpose implies the reservation of

unappropriated, and thus available, water appurtenant to the land to the extent necessary to fulfill that

purpose. Because this is a federal right, derived from the federal reservation of the land, it does not

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2The federal mandamus statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1361, provides:

The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any action in the nature of

mandamus to compel an officer or employee of the United States or any agency

thereof to perform a duty owed to the plaintiff.

3Plaintiffs assert that they also seek a mandatory injunction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and the

Administrative Procedure Act. Because the Administrative Procedure Act precludes judicial

review of agency action "committed to agency discretion by law," 5 U.S.C. § 701(a), we reach

depend on state law. With respect to reserved water rights on Indian reservations, these

federally-created rights belong to the Indiansrather than to the United States, which holdsthem only

as trustee. Nevertheless, the United States may be joined in a general stream adjudication to file and

defend Indian reserved water rights, as it was in the Idaho proceeding. Colorado River Water

Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. at 810-13.

The Tribes' claim to a water right in this case did not pertain to land within its Reservation

boundaries nor, so far as we can tell, did the claim derive from the government's withdrawal of land

from the public domain and its reservation for a particular purpose. The Tribes' claim dealt instead

with "the unoccupied lands of the United States so long as game may be found thereon," and the

Tribes' treaty right to "hunt" on those unoccupied lands outside its Reservation. The Department of

the Interior and the Department ofJustice concluded, for reasons we see no need to explain, that the

Tribes' water rights claim was meritless, that the United States would therefore not file and defend

it in the state adjudication, and that if the Tribes wished to proceed they would have to do so on their

own. The question is whether the federal courts have the authority to force the United States to

pursue this claim on the Tribes' behalf.

"Except as otherwise provided by law," the authority to conduct litigation inwhich the United

States is interested is reserved to the Department of Justice, 28 U.S.C. § 516, and the Attorney

General shall supervise that litigation, 28 U.S.C. § 519. Because the Tribes seek to compel the

Attorney General to take action on their behalf, the district court treated their claim as one sounding

in mandamus.2 A court may properly issue a writ of mandamus only if "the duty to be performed is

ministerial and the obligation to act peremptory and clearly defined. The law must not only authorize

the demanded action, but require it; the duty must be clear and undisputable."313th Regional Corp.

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the same result whether we label the relief sought as mandamus or as a mandatory injunction. 

Under either approach, the question is whether the Attorney General possesses unreviewable

authority to reach the decision she did. See Carpet, Linoleum & Resilient Tile v. Brown, 656

F.2d 564, 567 (10th Cir. 1981). 

v. Department of Interior, 654 F.2d 758, 760 (D.C. Cir. 1980) (citing United States ex rel.

McLennan v. Wilbur, 283 U.S. 414 (1931)).

In both civil and criminal cases, courts have long acknowledged that the Attorney General's

authority to control the course of the federal government's litigation is presumptively immune from

judicialreview. In criminal proceedings, "so long as the prosecutor has probable cause to believe that

the accused committed an offense defined by statute, the decision whether or not to prosecute, and

what charge to file or bring before a grand jury, generally rests entirely in his discretion." Wayte v.

United States, 470 U.S. 598, 607 (1985) (citing Bordenkircher v. Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 364 (1978)).

Adhering to this principle, this court has declined to review a federal prosecutor's decision regarding

a plea agreement, Newman v. United States, 382 F.2d 479, 480 (D.C. Cir. 1967), and the Attorney

General's decision not to prosecute alleged criminal conduct, Powell v. Katzenbach, 359 F.2d 234,

235 (D.C. Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 384 U.S. 906 (1966); see also Community for Creative NonViolence v. Pierce, 786 F.2d 1199, 1201 (D.C. Cir. 1986). Courts have also refused to review the

AttorneyGeneral'slitigation decisionsin civil matters. The Attorney General's exercise of discretion

under § 5 ofthe Voting Rights Act isjudicially unreviewable, Morris v. Gressette, 432 U.S. 491, 500-

01 (1977), as is the Attorney General's invocation of the Supreme Court's jurisdiction in a

federal-state controversy, United States v. California, 332 U.S. 19, 27-29 (1947). See also Swift v.

United States, 276 U.S. 311, 331 (1928); FTC v. Claire Furnace Co., 274 U.S. 160, 174 (1927).

The Attorney General's power to supervise litigation in which the United States is interested

or is a party has its limits. A federal attorney may not deliberately base a decision to prosecute on

race, religion or the exercise of protected statutory or constitutional rights. Wayte, 470 U.S. at 608.

And statutes may limit the Attorney General's discretion. See, e.g., United States v. California, 332

U.S. at 19; Swift, 276 U.S. at 331. We have held that the Attorney General's exclusive authority to

represent an agency in federal court was restricted by a legislative grant of independent litigating

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4Under the Administrative Procedure Act, all final agency actionsincluding an agency's

failure to actare subject to judicial review unless "(1) statutes preclude judicial review; or (2)

agency action is committed to agency discretion by law." 5 U.S.C. § 701(a). 

authority to the agency. Mail Order Ass'n v. United States Postal Serv., 986 F.2d 509, 527 (D.C.

Cir. 1993). Similarly, civil laws governing agency conduct may limit the Attorney General in

conducting litigation on an agency's behalf. See Executive Business Media v. Department of Defense,

3 F.3d 759, 761 (4th Cir. 1993).

As to the Attorney General's refusal to assert the Tribes' claims in the Idaho water rights

adjudication, that decision was presumptively within her discretion. The circumstances resemble, in

many respects, those of Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821 (1985), in which an agency refused to

enforce itsregulations. For reasons that fully apply to this case, the Supreme Court held that "agency

refusals to institute investigative or enforcement proceedings" are presumed immune from judicial

review under 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2).4 Chaney, 470 U.S. at 832. Courts are ill-equipped to evaluate

the factorsthat go into a decision not to bring suit or to enforce regulations. Id. "[T]he agency must

not only assess whether a violation has occurred, but whether agency resources are best spent on this

violation or another, whether the agency is likely to succeed if it acts, whether the particular

enforcement action requested best fits the agency's overall policies, and, indeed, whether the agency

has enough resources to undertake the action at all." Id.; cf. Wayte, 470 U.S. at 607. In addition,

the government's refusal to institute legal proceedingsas compared to an affirmative exercise of

poweris less likely to encroach upon protected liberty or property interests. Chaney, 470 U.S. at

832. Judicial monitoring of a refusal to act is correspondingly less necessary. Id.

To be sure, Chaney held only that an agency's decision not to enforce its regulations is

presumptively unreviewable. Judicial review may be had if Congress has "indicated an intent to

circumscribe agency enforcement discretion, and ... provided meaningfulstandards for defining the

limits of that discretion." Id. at 834. With respect to this case, is there a "meaningful standard" for

assessing whether and how the Attorney Generalshould exercise her discretion in deciding to assert

claims on the Tribes' behalf in the Snake River basin water rights adjudication?

The Tribesidentify no statute or other restriction so limiting the AttorneyGeneral's discretion

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here. The provision conferring authority on the Attorney General to represent tribal interests contains

no "meaningful standard" limiting her prosecutorial discretion. That provision, 25 U.S.C. § 175,

states: "In all States and Territories where there are reservations or allotted Indians the United States

attorney shallrepresent them in allsuits at law and in equity." This court has already recognized that

the statute "impose[s] only a discretionary duty of representation." Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe of

Indians v. Morton, 499 F.2d 1095, 1097 (D.C. Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 962 (1975).

Pyramid Lake rejected a tribe's claimfor reimbursement ofitslegal expensesincurred in itssuccessful

challenge to a regulation promulgated by the Secretary of the Interior. We held that § 175 did not

provide the "direct statutory authority" necessary to sustain an award of attorneys' fees against the

United States. 499 F.2d at 1096-97; see also Rincon Band of Mission Indians v. Escondido Mutual

Water Co., 459 F.2d 1082, 1084 (9th Cir. 1972). Even without this precedent, however, we would

conclude that § 175 is one of those statutes "drawn in such broad terms that in a given case there is

no law to apply." Chaney, 470 U.S. at 830 (citing Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, 401

U.S. 402, 410 (1971)). The provision does not withdraw discretion from the Attorney General, and

it offers no standards for judicial evaluation of the Attorney General's litigating decisions to pursue

or not to pursue particular claims.

The Tribes have not alleged and the record does not show that the Attorney General acted

in bad faith in rejecting the Tribes' request. There is surely nothing in § 175, or any other federal

statute, obligating government attorneys to file what they believe are meritless claims. Professional

ethics are not suspended whenever an Indian tribe seeks to have the government represent it. Idaho

has its own Rule 11, comparable to Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, requiring

attorneys who sign and file pleadings and other papers to have a reasonable belief that the pleading

or paper is well grounded in fact and is warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the

extension of existing law. IDAHO R. CIV. P. 11(a)(1).

While it is true that the United States acts in a fiduciary capacity in its dealings with Indian

tribal property, United States v. Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, 480 U.S. 700, 707 (1987), it is also

true that the government's fiduciary responsibilities necessarily depend on the substantive laws

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creating those obligations. United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206, 224-25 (1983) (Mitchell II );

United States v. Mitchell, 445 U.S. 535, 542 (1980) (Mitchell I ). We agree with the district court

that an Indian tribe cannot force the government to take a specific action unless a treaty, statute or

agreement imposes, expressly or by implication, that duty. "Without an unambiguous provision by

Congress that clearly outlines a federal trust responsibility, courts must appreciate that whatever

fiduciaryobligation otherwise exists, it is a limited one only." National Wildlife Fed'n v. Andrus, 642

F.2d 589, 612 (D.C. Cir. 1980).

The Treaty of Fort Bridger, giving the Tribes their right to hunt on "the unoccupied lands of

the United States so long as game may be found thereon," does not require the United States to

litigate the claim the Tribes desire to pursue in Idaho. There is nothing to the Tribes' contention that

the "mere existence" of the Treaty requires the federal government to protect whatever claims to

off-reservation water rights the Tribes may wish to advance. Mitchell I, 445 U.S. at 542, and

Mitchell II, 463 U.S. at 224, establish that the scope of the United States' duty to an Indian tribe

depends on the underlying substantive law giving rise to that obligation. The Treaty creates a doubly

contingent tribal hunting right: the federal lands outside the Reservation must remain unoccupied,

and game must continue to be found on those federal lands. The Treaty does not suggest in the

slightest that upon the Tribes' request, the United States is bound to file and defend meritless claims

to water rights allegedly derived from this provision. The Tribes have a conditional hunting right as

against the United States, not a right to demand that the Department ofJustice act as its attorney for

any and all claims the Tribes consider worth filing in state court. To the extent the government had

some duty to evaluate the Tribes' position before rejecting it, it fulfilled that obligation. The

government undertook instreamflow studies; discussed with the Tribes their claim to off-reservation

water rights; retained a historian to determine if the Treaty might be read as the Tribes apparently

viewed it; and actively sought the assistance of the Tribes and their experts.

The Tribes point usto three casessupporting, they say, their contention that the government's

role as trustee requires the Attorney General to file claims on their behalf in the Idaho proceeding.

In the first, Fort Mojave Indian Tribe v. United States, 23 Cl. Ct. 417, 419-20 (1991), Indian tribes

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5

See Natural Resources Defense Council v. Hodel, 865 F.2d 288, 317 n.31 (D.C. Cir. 1985),

refusing to rely on Covelo because "it is elementary that a vacated decision is not binding

precedent and should not be cited as such." 

sued the federal government for damages, alleging deficienciesin the government'srepresentation of

the tribes in the Arizona v. California proceeding that quantified the tribes' federal reserved water

rights. That the tribes had such reserved rights all agreed. Id. at 425. The only issue was how the

rights should be measured. The Claims Court held that the United States was not immune from the

suit and that the federal government had a duty to protect the tribes' propertythe reserved water

right, which the government held in trust. Id. at 426-27. On the question before us, Fort Mojave has

nothing to say. The United States does not hold any recognized off-reservation water right in trust

for the Tribesit denies that one exists. Whether the United States is correct may ultimately be

determined by the Idaho court if the Tribes pursue their claim on their own behalf, asthey have every

right to do. In the meantime, the United States has no duty, or at least no legal duty a federal court

may impose on it, to assent to the Tribe's litigation demand. The Tribes' other two casesCovelo

Indian Community v. Watt, 551 F. Supp. 366 (D.D.C. 1982), vacated as moot, No. 83-2377 (D.C.

Cir. Feb. 1, 1983), and Joint Tribal Council of the Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Morton, 528 F.2d 370

(1st Cir. 1975)are also wide of the mark. In Covelo, the district court found that a statute

specifically directing the proposal of legislative solutions for unlitigated Indian claims imposed a

mandatory duty on the Secretary of the Interior. Covelo, 551 F. Supp. at 382-83. Even if Covelo

had any precedential value,5no such congressional directive exists here. And in Passamaquoddy

Tribe, the First Circuit merely held that the Indian Nonintercourse Act, 25 U.S.C. § 177, imposed

fiduciary obligations on the United States. There is no need to say whether this holding survives

Mitchell I and Mitchell II. The Indian Nonintercourse Act expressly prohibits the conveyance of

Indian landsto unauthorized third parties. 25 U.S.C. § 177. Its purpose was to protect Indian lands,

leading the court in Passamaquoddy Tribe to conclude that such protection would not be meaningful

"without a corresponding federal duty to ... take such action as may be warranted in the

circumstances." Passamaquoddy Tribe, 528 F.2d at 379. The contingent treaty provision the Tribes

invoke in this case is not comparable. Moreover, even though the Passamaquoddy Tribe court held

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that the Indian Nonintercourse Act imposed fiduciary obligations on the United States, it specifically

declined to decide whether this duty required the government to sue on behalf of the plaintiff Indian

tribe. Id. at 375, 379.

The Tribes' remaining contention is that an "attorney-client" relationship between them and

the United States somehow limited the Attorney General's authority to refuse to litigate on their

behalf. The argument is hard to follow. Attorneys are not bound to file what they consider worthless

claims on behalf of their clients. To the contrary, their duty is not to file such claims. If the client is

dissatisfied, the client may seek other counsel, asthe Tribes may do here. In any event, there was no

attorney-client relationship between the United States and the Tribes with respect to the

off-reservation water claim. No express agreement created such a relationship. And, as the district

court determined, the record does not show that the United States implied, through its conduct, that

it would represent the Tribes with respect to this claim. The Tribes make much of an appearance

entered by the Department of Justice on behalf of the Tribes in 1987. Yet according to the Tribes'

own affidavits, this appearance could not have related to the Tribes' alleged off-reservation water

rights. Preparation of that claim did not even begin until 1988. The Tribes also rely on the sworn

assertions of their tribal attorneys that "it was clear" the United States was representing the Tribes.

These opinions do not establish that the United States had agreed to file any off-reservation water

rights claim for the Tribes. The Tribes' lawyers attended the quarterly meetings regarding the

instream flow studies, and in December 1992, they met with Interior Department officials, after the

Department's Regional Solicitor had notified the Tribesthat he would recommend against the United

States' filing claims on their behalf. If anything, that the Tribes saw fit to retain their own attorneys

undermines their contention that the United States had taken on their representation.

We conclude that neither 25 U.S.C. § 175, the Fort Bridger Treaty, nor an attorney-client

relationship limited the Attorney General's discretion to refuse to assert the Tribes' claims to

off-reservation water rights in the Snake River basin water rights adjudication. Because judicial

review of the Attorney General's decision is consequently unavailable, the district court properly

dismissed the case.

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Affirmed.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge, with whom WALD, Circuit Judge, joins, concurring: I join the

majority's holding that the Tribes have failed to identify a specific legal obligation constraining the

Attorney General's discretion to choose which water rights claims to file in the Idaho State

proceeding. I write separately to emphasize two points that are implicit in the majority's opinion.

First, as the federal government's trust responsibility toward a particular tribal resource

increasesin scope, the AttorneyGeneral's prosecutorial discretion contracts. Thus, a conclusion that

the Attorney General's discretion is unreviewable under Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821 (1985), is

tantamount in the instant case to a decision that the government'strust obligation lacksthe specificity

required after United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206, 224-25 (1983) (Mitchell II ), and United

States v. Mitchell, 445 U.S. 535, 542 (1980) (Mitchell I ), to impose an affirmative and enforceable

duty. Because any fiduciary relationship established by the off-reservation hunting right in the Fort

Bridger Treaty does not provide the requisite specificity, the court has no occasion to decide what

the scope of the government's duties might be in a more compelling circumstance. See, e.g., Joint

Tribal Council of the Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Morton, 528 F.2d 370, 379 (1st Cir. 1975); Fort

Mojave Indian Tribe v. United States, 23 Cl. Ct. 417, 425-26 (1991).

Furthermore, to decide the instant case the court need not appraise the merits of the Tribes'

off-reservation water rights claims. Instead, the court has only to evaluate the nature of the

government's duty as expressed in the underlying substantive lawnamely, the Fort Bridger Treaty.

As the majority opinion indicates, the Tribes' contingent hunting right is insufficient to impose a

protective trust obligation on the federal government. Majority Opinion at 10-13. Having identified

no other viable source of the government's duty, the Tribes therefore have no claim to the Attorney

General's assistance in filing their claims.

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