Source: https://www.bighorncountynews.com/content/battle-%E2%80%98two-sovereigns%E2%80%99
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 14:10:05+00:00

Document:
Clayvin Herrera poses for a picture on the plaza of the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, Jan. 8 in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Supreme is reviewing a case in which Clayvin Herrera, a Crow tribal member and former tribal game warden from Montana, is asserting his right under a 150-year-old treaty with the U.S. government to hunt elk in the Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming.
Lillian Alvernaz (right), indigenous legal justice fellow for the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, answers audience questions at Little Big Horn College during a Dec. 14 informational forum on the U.S. Supreme Court case, Herrera v. Wyoming. The two main speakers on this subject were Alvernaz and Samuel Enemy-Hunter (left), ACLU of Montana’s indigenous justice organizer.
Findings from two federal cases more than 100 years apart, and allegedly contradictory, collided Jan. 8 before the U.S. Supreme Court in a conflict involving the State of Wyoming and former Crow tribal game warden Clayvin Herrera.
The Crow Tribe’s 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, which recently passed its 150th anniversary, states tribal members have the right to hunt on “unoccupied lands.” Using this document, Herrera is defending a January 2014 incident where – without a hunting license and outside the regular season – he crossed a fence, and shot and killed a bull elk in Wyoming’s Bighorn National Forest.
Wyoming’s Sheridan Circuit Court, following a three-day jury trial in April 2016, ordered Herrera to pay $8,080 in fines and court costs for the incident. In addition, it ordered his Wyoming hunting privileges suspended for three years.
Three appeals after his conviction, Herrera was defeated in the Fourth Judicial District of Wyoming, denied entry by the Wyoming Supreme Court and now is taking his last shot in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The current case, Herrera v. Wyoming, bears a remarkable similarity to Crow Tribe of Indians v. Repsis, decided in December 1995 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. As with Herrera’s situation, Repsis involved a Crow tribal game warden charged for shooting and killing an elk without a Wyoming hunting license in the Bighorn National Forest.
The plaintiff in Repsis, Thomas Ten Bear, argued the Fort Laramie Treaty gave him the right to hunt on “unoccupied lands,” but – using Race Horse as a precedent – the Tenth Circuit rejected his suit against Wyoming.
Chief Justice John Roberts, during Herrera’s hearing, questioned the Tenth Circuit’s conclusion.
Citing the 1903 case Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, where the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that Congress had final say in Native American matters, he wanted the current court to examine the original intent of those who signed the Fort Laramie Treaty.
Justice Edward Douglas White, who served on the Supreme Court during the Lone Wolf case, stated in his decision that Congress could alter Native American treaties.
Knepper, for his part, brought up Yellowstone National Park, which was established in Montana beginning March 1872, soon after the Race Horse case. Yellowstone, he noted, was carved from the Crow hunting district.
Having grown up on the Crow Reservation, Samuel Enemy-Hunter remembers living off commodities controlled by the federal government. Now an indigenous justice organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, he prefers the freedom of getting his food himself or through fellow Crow tribal members.
On Sept. 11, 2018, the self-described “avid hunter” signed an amicus brief drafted by the ACLU in support of Herrera. Three months later, Enemy-Hunter and Lillian Alvernaz, ACLU of Montana’s indigenous legal justice fellow, hosted a public forum the evening of Dec. 14 at the Student Union Building of Crow Agency’s Little Big Horn College. There, they spoke to residents on the implications of Herrera’s case.
Though the crowd wasn’t large – around 20 people – those in attendance were open to expressing their hopes and concerns. Relations with white ranchers near the Wyoming border had been tense, according to some of the attendees. Tribal members had noticed more fences in the area, and rumors had circulated the ranchers were using motion sensors and drones to catch people allegedly breaking the law.
In years that he does hunt, Stewart continued, he usually bags between five and 12 deer, and “if we’re lucky,” four to five elk. From there, as with Herrera, he gives away a significant portion of the meat to friends and family.
Using the case as a jumping-off point, Enemy-Hunter added, could serve as “a good time to build some kind of relationship” between the tribe and Wyoming.
Herrera v. Wyoming, according to Alvernaz, likely will be decided around June – though she noted that in court case verdicts, the timing is never certain.

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